April 27, 2024

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[THE INVESTOR] Samsung Electronics said on June 15 it had 320,000 employees around the globe as of last year and spent 16.8 trillion won (US$15.30 billion) on research and development projects.

According to its annual business report, Samsung Electronics had 320,671 staff members as of 2017, up 3.9 percent from 308,745 a year earlier.

By region, Korea accounted for 96,458, up 3.5 percent over the cited period. The company had 224,213 employees on its payroll in other countries, up 4 percent on-year. The number of overseas employees first exceeded those at home in 2011.

The number of employees in China moved down 6 percent on-year to 34,843. Those in the Middle East and Africa also declined 7.8 percent and 19.7 percent, respectively, the report showed.

An official from Samsung said the decline was due to efforts to bring more efficiency to its sales network.

Samsung said it had a presence in 73 countries as of the end of 2017, down six from a year earlier.

Women accounted for 45 percent of Samsung’s workforce, up 1 percentage point from a year earlier.

The company also said it had 2,436 subcontractors around the world.

In 2017, the company spent nearly 17 trillion won on research and development projects, up 13.8 percent on-year, the report added.

By Song Seung-hyun and newswires (ssh@heraldcorp.com)