Gloomy Year End for Samsung Employees

Many Samsung employees are gloomy as the year nears its end due to the impending special investigation into the Samsung Group slush fund scandal, unlike workers for other major Korean firms who are being presented with promotions and incentives.

The Samsung Group has held a New Year’s greeting ceremony every early January at the Shilla Hotel, Jangchung-dong, Jung-gu, Seoul. However, the ceremony will not take place next January.

Moreover, the nation’s largest business group canceled its traditional award ceremony, which has been held on January 9 every year, coinciding with the birthday of its chairman, Lee Kun-hee, to give awards to its best employees.

Departments of the group have also canceled their official year-end parties, and employees belonging to major departments have not participated in their private year-end parties.

Unlike employees of other major firms, such as LG Electronics, who have planned their year-end holidays, Samsung employees working for the group’s Strategy and Planning Department have not dared to even talk about holidays.

Even though lots of Korean firms are scheduled to hold ceremonies to announce the closing of the office for the year on either December 27 or 28, Samsung’s Strategy and Planning Department will have its ceremony on December 31. A Samsung employee said, “We have even worked on Sundays for the past few months. We cannot even dream of year-end holidays.”

Making Samsung employees gloomier, the damage done by former Samsung legal executive Kim Yong-cheol’s whistleblowing about the group’s slush fund will be translated into monetary losses over the near term.

The group’s performance for the fourth quarter of the year, which reflects the aftermath of the lawyer’s disclosure, will be released January 2008, and its performance for the first quarter of next year, when the special investigation will be in its full-swing, will be reported in April of next year.

An executive of Samsung said, “We still have lots of difficulties doing regular business, and we face limitations when doing our sales work. Nonetheless, we cannot talk about our suffering since some people may mistakenly consider our genuine confession as a trick to appeal to their sympathies.”

woogija@donga.com