Samsung Electronics cut jobs at its US display, phone and other consumer electronics operations – affecting workers mainly in New Jersey and Texas, according to documents and two people familiar with the matter.
The South Korean tech giant said yesterday in a statement to Reuters that 739 roles in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, have been affected by plans by Samsung Electronics America (SEA) – which is focused on consumer electronics and does not include chips – to move its headquarters to Texas.
A majority of people affected have received relocation offers, but others were let go, it added without elaborating.
At SEA’s Plano, Texas office, some 100 workers including staff in its mobile division, have been let go, according to one person who said they were among the employees laid off. Sources declined to be identified because of the sensitivity of the issue.
The cuts – though related to the shift in headquarters – underscore diverging fortunes within the South Korean tech giant with its chip division skyrocketing to record profit but its consumer electronics units languishing as chip costs surge.
Samsung’s decision to shift SEA’s headquarters is striking because SEA employees in New Jersey only moved to new offices with much fanfare less than a year ago. SEA employs about 1,200 workers in New Jersey, according to a release by US Representative Josh Gottheimer, who attended an event to mark the opening of the new offices in September.
While the precise extent of the layoffs at SEA could not be learned, documents seen by Reuters show that the unit notified some employees on June 30 of an “enterprise-wide reduction-in-force”, adding that there were a “significant number of impacts”.
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