Samsung Moves To Sack Staff

At its peal the IT and mobile communications division
employed around 200 executives this week several were told to leave the company
permanently, it is not known whether Samsung is set to restructure their
Australian operation.

According to the Wall Street Journal among the mobile division
employees who lost their jobs Wednesday were vice presidents, senior vice
presidents and executive vice presidents, including some in development,
marketing and media solution centre divisions, they said.

A spokesman for Samsung declined to comment.

Samsung has a reputation for fast execution of operations
and stricter management of its employees than other Korean companies.
Promotions, demotions and job cuts for executives aren’t uncommon at Samsung,
but analysts say the scope of the change is a contrast to last year, when the
company was expanding and promoted a bigger number of executives than this
year.

Samsung Group, the conglomerate that owns Samsung
Electronics, on Thursday said 165 executives at Samsung Electronics would be
promoted for 2015. This compares with 227 executives promoted at the end of
last year and 226 executives promoted the year before that, when its mobile
business was growing, according to the conglomerate.

“Samsung had been working to reach an annual smartphone
sales target of 500 million [units] in the long term, but that now looks
difficult to achieve,” said Lee Seung-woo, an analyst with IBK Securities in
Seoul.

Samsung plans to cut the number of phone models it offers by
25% to 30% next year, in a bid to cut costs and combat declining profit amid
stiff competition from low-cost Chinese makers.