[EXCLUSIVE] Big Tech layoffs loom in Korea as furious workers revolt

Industry

Published: 22 Jan. 2024, 07:00 Updated: 22 Jan. 2024, 09:50

[EXCLUSIVE] Big Tech layoffs loom in Korea as furious workers revolt

Google staff protest against the treatment of employees and the global layoffs affecting around 10,000 workers, outside Google HQ on April 4, 2023. [EPA]

Big Tech U.S. companies, including Google and Amazon, are trying to trim the workforce of their Korean units in line with massive global layoffs, but the actual scale remains relatively meager compared to other regions.

The large-scale job cut plan, initially announced last year, has faced major challenges in Asian countries including Korea and Japan due to the legal system imposing strict guidelines on layoffs alongside localized labor unions fighting back.

Google Korea, for instance, has so far had around 10 employees, or less than 2 percent of its total workforce, resign since last year as a part of the tech behemoth's decision to cut some 12,000 jobs or 6 percent of the entire workforce. Of the Korean employees advised to resign, some remain at their positions since recommended resignation is different from the forced resignation — which is dominant in the U.S. and U.K. — since it allows workers to stay on should they decline the suggestion.

Google’s Korean and Japanese arms formed labor unions last year to mitigate the impact of the wave of layoffs.

Following the 12,000-employee job cut announcement, Google outlined fresh plans to cut hundreds of jobs earlier this month in an aggressive move to curb costs amid sluggish sales.

“Google Korea is under the influence of the latest job cut too, although the specific size is not known,” said Kim Jung-sub, head of Google Korea’s labor union, in an interview with the Korea JoongAng Daily.

The union, comprised of more than 100 employees out of approximately 800 full-time workers at Google Korea, stated its objective as responding to the recurrent layoffs from its headquarters. Google Korea Workers’ Union is affiliated with the umbrella labor organization Korean Finance & Service Workers’ Union, to which the unionized members of Microsoft Korea and SAP Korea also belong.

The same move happened in Google’s Japanese arm that launched a labor union last January to counteract the large-scale layoff.

Google CEO Sundar Pichai made it public that more job cuts are coming this year as the company continues to bet big on areas like AI.

The top priority of the Korean union is to strengthen its collective bargaining against management to ensure job stability.

“We plan to strike an agreement ensuring job security and pursue voluntary resignation instead of the advised resignations,” Kim said.

Voluntary resignation tends to limit the subject of job cuts to long-time workers and promises a bounty sum of bonuses in return for the early resignation.

Discussions are still under way, with laborers and management entering the fourth round of collective bargaining meetings last November, according to the website of Google Korea Workers’ Union.

For a dismissal to be legal in Korea and Japan, a company has to prove that it has reasonable grounds, such as a serious financial shortage, to terminate an employee. An employee can file a complaint when he or she feels that the employer made the layoffs without sound grounds, leaving an employer with the possibility of facing penalties including fines.

“A one-time advised recommendation is lawful, but when it happens over and over again, it can fall under the category of unfair labor practice,” Kim said.

Amazon also released a staff-cutting plan last January aimed at cutting 18,000 workers while hundreds of job cuts were announced this month.

But its Korean unit, Amazon Web Services (AWS) Korea, retained a similar size of workforce at around 1,100 people, according to data about registered employees for the national pension program.

“Amazon hasn’t executed an aggressive job cut in AWS Korea, although it is doing ‘quiet cutting’,” said a source who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

Quiet cutting refers to employers reducing the number of employees by downgrading their roles.

BY PARK EUN-JEE [park.eunjee@joongang.co.kr]