Experienced Engineers from SK Hynix Face Lawsuit

It is confirmed that many of the semiconductor engineers on the move to SK Hynix are sued by former employers for provisional injunction. Happened just lately, when SK Hynix increased number of its experienced positions aggressively. Attention is drawn on whether a change in the company’s strategy of recruiting high-ranking employees occurs as a result of lawsuit filed by competitors.

According to industry sources on the 11 Nov, some recently hired engineers in SK Hynix are faced with lawsuit from their former employers in an injunction.  It is reported that those who previously made an agreement for not moving to another company within a certain period of time, are now subject to litigation.

SK Hynix hired more than 500 experienced engineers over the past two years. Many used to work for competitors and among them, less than 10 were involved in the lawsuit for breaking the respective agreement.

“This is a side effect caused by SK Hynix’s recent increase in experienced workers,” said an industry representative. He added, “Through this incident, SK Hynix is likely to change its procedure such as document verification on job transfer ban when hiring experienced workers”.

Rumor has it that SK Hynix has recently increased its number of employees in NAND flash business, relatively weak in competitive edge and especially in solution development. This includes human resources for development of Solid State Drive (SSD) controller IC and firmware.

“Engineers working for competitors have recently moved to SK Hynix and it shows that SK Hynix has increased its positions in the market by that much,” claimed by some industry sources. SK Hynix is about to make USD 4.36 billion (KRW 40 trillion) in annual sales and USD20 billion (KRW 20 trillion) in operating profit this year, thanks to the booming memory markets. If this is achieved, sales and operating profit will grow by 140% and 550% respectively compared to 2016.

Another industry source said, “If we look at salary and performance incentive, SK Hynix’s employees’ welfare has improved to a level, that is not much different from Samsung Electronics, the world’s top semiconductor company today”. As the market value has also firmly established itself as the second top company after Samsung Electronics, there is no reason not to attract more talented people.

“It is difficult to confirm whether any individual employee has been sued,” said an SK Hynix official.