Sk Hynix China employees hit hard: bonuses less than 5% of their Korean counterparts

Person: Su Yang

SK Hynix, whose market value keeps setting new highs, adds a touch of drama to the booming storage sector with its “year-end bonus forecast.”

Recently, reports said that, driven by a surge in AI-powered storage demand, Korean company SK Hynix—one of the core storage suppliers—is expected to reach an operating profit ceiling of 250 trillion won in 2026. Under a 10% dividend rule, the maximum year-end bonus per person could exceed 3 million yuan.

SK Hynix performance data

Citing views from a matchmaking company, Korean media claimed that “SK Hynix employees matched for speed-dating are now unconditionally rated as A-tier,” and even variety programs joke about the “high value” of SK Hynix’s work uniform.

Investment bank Macquarie Securities went even further, predicting that SK Hynix’s operating profit in 2027 will reach 447 trillion won. If the dividend rule stays the same, in 2027 the bonus that can be distributed per person would be about 129 million won, close to 6.1 million RMB.

In its response to Yicai (First Financial), SK Hynix confirmed the authenticity of the 10% operating-profit-based distribution rule and emphasized that, since the annual performance for 2026 and next year has not yet been determined, the bonus size cannot be predicted, thereby politely denying the accuracy of the claimed 6.1 million RMB bonus package.

The high year-end bonus predictions may not be entirely true, but there is a clear difference in bonuses between employees in China and in South Korea.

“We’ve canceled the bonus cap, but bonuses in China can’t go up,” said a China-based SK Hynix employee. “In Korea, they settle once a year; in China, it’s twice a year.”

The employee revealed that if they were to receive a 3 million yuan bonus, it would be less than 5% of Chinese employees. Converted, that would be around 150,000 yuan. “It’s not that every person gets 150,000—bonuses are adjusted appropriately according to KPI ratings. The higher the rating, the higher the bonus. At my highest, I got a little over 100,000.”

This employee has been with SK Hynix for more than 10 years and has a background in technical positions.

In the storage industry’s super cycle, expectations of large year-end bonuses have led to media reports claiming that storage has surpassed doctors and lawyers to become the job Korean mothers-in-law favor most in the matchmaking market.

It’s just that, compared with the current boom, the storage downcycle looks like a different story altogether.

In fiscal year 2023, the global semiconductor industry was in a “winter period.” SK Hynix’s total annual revenue fell by about 27% year-on-year to 32.77 trillion won, and it recorded a net loss of 9.14 trillion won. “The lowest point was around 2023 and 2024—there were no bonuses, it was zero,” the aforementioned SK Hynix China employee said.

On the heavily discussed topic of “year-end bonuses of 3 million+ per person, 6 million+,” multiple people in the industry raised doubts, stressing that “per capita” figures are not a meaningful reference.

“It might be possible on average, but it definitely can’t be 3 million RMB for everyone. Executives get a lot, engineers get several hundred thousand, and it’s fine if operators get 100,000,” said a semiconductor industry practitioner. “For example, a TSMC engineer—when you total it up for the whole year, it’s possible to reach 1 million RMB.”

“I’m looking at my own income and comparing it with what’s posted online. The gap is way too big,” the aforementioned SK Hynix China employee explained when talking about the difference in year-end bonuses between employees in China and South Korea. “They (Korean employees) have high monthly salaries, and their bonuses are issued as a proportion of 12 months’ salary each year.”

Currently, SK Hynix has three main factories on the Chinese mainland: located in Wuxi, Dalian, and Chongqing. Wuxi mainly handles DRAM business. Dalian is a NAND factory of Solidigm, formed after acquiring Intel assets. The Chongqing plant is a packaging and testing base. There are also sales offices in Shenzhen, Beijing, and Shanghai that provide technical support.

According to the job posting for the Dalian factory published on Liepin.com, the monthly salary for relevant engineering positions generally falls in the 10,000–30,000 yuan range, with a promise of 13 salaries paid per year. For senior engineer positions, the monthly salary can be as high as 35,000 yuan.

Beyond pay, SK Hynix also provides Chinese employees with routine benefits such as annual leave. For example, sales and other support roles do not require overtime, but there are no stock-related incentives.

“Management positions are held by Koreans; Chinese employees can’t be in management,” the aforementioned SK Hynix China employee emphasized.

Several former employees of Korean companies said that the company generally does not provide stock incentives to Chinese employees. In the view of a former Samsung employee, Chinese companies are more like sales entities—similar to the concept of a national-level agent.

“Now some mainland Chinese have also entered middle management, and TSMC is the same,” said Wu Zihao, a former TSMC factory construction expert and CEO of Ronghe Semiconductor Consulting. “Korean factories have more Koreans, so giving priority hiring to Koreans is normal. As people have worked longer on the mainland, local management cadres will also rise—it’s not that absolute.”

Based on industry and corporate expectations, in the next 2–3 years, storage will remain a continuously hot topic, and “marriage and dating jokes” and “work-uniform jokes” will keep showing up.

At the first-quarter earnings conference, SK Hynix’s CFO said that over the next three years, demand represented by HBM is likely to continue to exceed supply, and related growth will continue to be centered on to B demand. This signal is also reflected in SK Hynix’s official press releases.

SK Hynix said: “Although the first quarter is usually a seasonal off-season, market demand remains strong, driven by the expansion of investment in artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure. The company has sustained its momentum of performance growth by expanding sales of high value-added products such as high-bandwidth memory (HBM), large-capacity server DRAM modules, and enterprise solid-state drives (eSSD).”

In short, all of the above are typical to B customer demand.

This also means that if storage original equipment manufacturers like SK Hynix do not increase capacity support for consumer-grade products, the previously discussed topic of memory price increases will continue to impact consumer products and drive a price hike wave, keeping “electronic gold” as a persistent headache for cyber gamers.