Anxiety as Samsung Employees Fear the Axe

Rumors have found their way into the blogosphere that Samsung’s employees fear the axe during this year’s expected annual reshuffle. Analysts have predicted that this year’s Samsung reshuffle will cost many jobs and as well change many positions. These changes can be directly related to the company’s poor smartphone sales and damning financial results.Personnel changes at the South Korean tech giant are expected as soon as early December, although the precise date is not provided. Samsung’s announcements for staff changes are customary, but this year’s is causing anxiety. This is more so since poor corporate performance will directly result to poor performance.An unnamed Samsung employee was cited as saying people are uneasy, including the company’s top management. Samsung recorded a 49% drop in profits in Q3 of 2013.Some of the reasons why Sammy’s mobile business has been performing dismally include dropping sales both in the United States and China, which make the company’s largest market. Apple has been keeping Samsung on their heels in the US, while the rise of new Chinese smartphone manufacturing giants has forced Samsung to lose favor with its loyal customers in China. As a manifestation of the company’s progressive decline, US smartphone sales for the flagship device S5 were 40 percent below expectations. Sales in China have also declined in the tunes of 50 percent.As previously reported by Samsung Update, internal deliberations held at the company might see it’s head of mobile division shift position. Mr. BK Yoon, the Co-CEO in charge of Samsung’s home appliances and TV business, may be assigned the responsibility of overseeing Samsung’s mobile business.Samsung employees are also concerned about changes at the executive level. According to one employee’s account, what happens at the management level will implicate how they’ll be required to work. Another employee was quoted as saying that the management was so distracted that they were requiring staff to work overtime to keep things in check.