Samsung to nurture 50,000 software talents for five years

Samsung Group has announced it will invest 170 billion won (152 million U.S. dollars) into nurturing 50,000 software engineers over the next five years. Samsung will also expand recruitment by 30 percent or more by hiring software engineers more than 2,000 people each year during the same period.

According to Samsung Group on Wednesday, it wants to support and participate in the government’s initiatives, such as laying groundwork for venture companies and the creative economy, by cultivating software engineers and providing jobs for them.

Samsung Group will train 7,500 college students by establishing the “Software Specialist Course (for those majoring in software)” and the “Course to Nurture Students with Non-software Major” in major universities. Those accepted for the specialist course will receive full scholarship for junior and senior years in college and advantages when applying for job openings at Samsung.

Samsung will also double the size of the Samsung Software Membership (Samsung Electronics) and the sGen Club (Samsung SDS), programs run by subsidiaries of Samsung to foster talents. Under this plan, 2,500 people will get training for the next five years or 500 a year. The group will also set up a “Software Academy for Junior” in 500 elementary and junior high schools to conduct the class for 40,000 children.

Samsung has hired 1,500 software engineers each year, but it will hire more than 2,000 from this year to hire more than 10,000 in the next five years. Samsung also decided to double the number of students to 400 for the Samsung Convergence Software Academy, a class introduced this year to train students majoring liberal arts so that they can be hired as software engineers.