Samsung is still the top mobile brand in the world. Huawei will not beat the company anytime soon especially since the US trade ban. However, Samsung isn’t without any problems. Sales of some products are going down. Smartphone sales are stagnant, no thanks to the Chinese OEMs rolling out affordable but almost premium mobile devices plus the booming 5G chip business. In the US, Samsung’s Austin research and development facility project is reportedly being shut down. This almost means layoff of some 300 employees.
There is no official announcement yet but some important documents filed within Texas were discovered. The files said that the Samsung Austin Research Center’s Central Processing Unit project is finally shutting down. The Texas Workforce Commission has received a WARN letter ( Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification). The exact number of employees being laid off will be 290.
The Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act is a requirement in the US for employers who are about to do major layoffs. The notice is federally mandated to inform the state government before making an announcement to the affected employees.
The WARN letter contains some not so good news. December 31 is the effectivity of the layoffs and that employees who will be affected don’t have bumping rights. This move may also affect the Advanced Computer Lab in San Jose, California although there is no word on how many employees will be laid off in the state.
Samsung Austin currently has 3,000 employees so the 300 to be removed from the roster is only ten percent. This will also have “no impact the Samsung Austin Semiconductor manufacturing facitlity” as per a company spokesman. This decision isn’t easy but it must be done if it needs to stay in the market.
Samsung Austin’s Michelle Glaze said: “We have treated all employees with respect. They all have been given appropriate packages and advanced notice. These things are very tough. People always wonder, ‘Did they treat them right?’ And we did. It’s unfortunate that they are losing their jobs, but it is based upon the fact that we’re always assessing our business.”
This means the Custom CPU Core Department of Samsung will be no more. It is said to just license ARM’s performance cores for future mobile processors.
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