Samsung shifts executives to six-day workweeks to ‘inject a sense of crisis’

Samsung is introducing a companywide six-day workweek policy for executives as the Korean tech giant takes emergency measures to tackle ongoing business uncertainty. This new policy comes off the back of Samsung’s disappointing financial results last year, alongside wider economic concerns like rising borrowing costs and oil prices and a rapid depreciation of Korean currency.

As reported by The Korea Economic Daily, a Samsung Group executive said, “Considering that performance of our major units, including Samsung Electronics Co, fell short of expectations in 2023, we are introducing the six-day work week for executives to inject a sense of crisis and make all-out efforts to overcome this crisis.”

Samsung is also facing increased competition in the production of high-bandwidth memory chips needed for artificial intelligence computing, battling rival memory providers like SK Hynix. After experiencing its worst financial year in over a decade, Samsung has since signaled its first profit in five quarters after seeing a rebound in chip demand.

While executives from other divisions in the sprawling Samsung empire have already been voluntarily working six days a week since the start of the year, according to The Korea Economic Daily, executives from other Samsung affiliates like Samsung Electronics, Samsung SDI, and Samsung SDS will now also be expected to work an extra day. Employees under the executive level are not expected to follow suit.