Samsung to Unveil DS Bonus Rules This Week Amid Pay Gap Tensions

* Editor's note: "AI PRISM" (Personalized Report & Insight Summarizing Media) is an artificial intelligence-based personalized news recommendation and summary service developed with support from the Korea Press Foundation. It selects and provides six news items tailored to each reader type.

1. Samsung Electronics to Disclose DS Special Bonus Criteria This Week

Key points: Samsung Electronics will disclose this week the detailed payment criteria for the DS division special bonus, which was newly created in May along with the settlement of labor-management wage negotiations. The program draws on 10.5% of the DS division's operating profit, with 40% distributed equally to all DS employees and the remainder paid on a differentiated basis according to each business unit's performance. The full after-tax amount will be paid in company shares, with only one-third immediately available for sale; the rest will be restricted from disposal in equal halves for one and two years. Next month, Roh Tae-moon, chief executive of the DX division, plans to hold a town hall meeting for all employees covering a wide range of topics including the compensation gap controversy and strategies for an earnings rebound.

2. The Assumption That AI Cuts Jobs Broke Down at Amazon and Google

Key points: Blind, an anonymous workplace community, analyzed more than 50,000 job changers from January last year through August this year and found that inflows exceeded outflows at Amazon, Google, Apple and Meta. AI chip and model developers such as Nvidia, AMD, OpenAI and Anthropic posted standout net gains, while Intel stood in stark contrast, classified as "large" in outflow share and "small" in inflow volume. Among software-as-a-service companies, Adobe and Databricks saw net inflows while Snowflake and Asana saw net outflows, splitting the talent map according to results from the AI transition. Blind said that when changing jobs, workers should weigh whether the role sits in a growth area rather than the company's name.

3. Shinhan Puts the Know-How of Its Top Department Heads Into AI

Key points: Shinhan Financial Group's "department head persona agent" project, launched last month, has entered pilot operation across 11 departments in total: five at Shinhan Bank and two each at Shinhan Card, Shinhan Securities and Shinhan Life. Each department head builds an agent directly in a two-person team with a junior employee capable of AI engineering, and "vibe coding," which generates code from natural language, will also be supported. Employees are also considering an approach in which they use AI to check the points their department head is likely to raise before submitting a report. Shinhan Financial Group will review stage-by-stage prototypes from this month through November, share the final output in early December, and expand the program across the group next year if its effectiveness is confirmed.

4. [Exclusive] Kakao Raises an "AI Sail" in Busan, Building a Talent and Startup Hub This Year

Key points: Kakao will build an "AI Sail Center" of about 230 pyeong near Busan Station this year and move in earnest into nurturing AI talent and supporting startups. The plan combines research capabilities from four science and technology institutes — KAIST, GIST, DGIST and UNIST — with Kakao's business infrastructure. Programs for each growth stage, including startup boot camps, joint research on AI transformation and demo days, will run on an ongoing basis, and the project will also support the AI transition of Busan's mainstay industries such as ports, logistics and tourism. Starting with Busan, Kakao plans to expand its hubs nationwide to build a self-sustaining ecosystem in which AI talent, technology and capital concentrated in the capital region also circulate in the regions.

5. "Signing Without Even Looking, Even With Deposits Up 200 Million Won": Relay Rebuilding in Songpa Triggers a Jeonse Crunch

Key points: As residents move out of one rebuilding complex after another in Seoul's Songpa district, jeonse (a lump-sum deposit lease) listings are being absorbed rapidly. As of the 25th, jeonse listings in Songpa numbered 1,368, down about 65% from February this year (3,904), while the cumulative rise in jeonse prices this year reached 9.41%, exceeding the 5.34% of the same period last year by 4.07 percentage points. Five complexes now relocating or about to relocate account for 2,826 households, sustaining pressure on demand. Reconstruction association members unable to find a jeonse home nearby are moving to Gyeonggi Province, including Wirye New Town, Hanam and Dasan New Town in Namyangju, and the industry expects the effects to spread into the Gyeonggi rental market.

6. Seoul Smartphone Bills Top New York, Highest Among Six Global Cities

Key points: A comparison of telecom charges in major cities across six countries by Japan's Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications found that SK Telecom's 4G 20GB plan in Seoul cost 6,916 yen a month (about 60,846 won), the highest among the six cities. That is about 2.3 times the level of NTT Docomo in Tokyo and about 2.8 times that of Orange in Paris. In response, the Korea Telecommunications Operators Association said charges were measured as excessively high in part because of an artificial comparison fitted to Japanese plan patterns, given that Korean 4G and 5G plans are integrated. KTOA stressed that taking into account charges relative to data usage and network quality, Korean telecom rates rank in the lower-middle tier compared with major countries abroad.