Samsung workers in a smartphone plant in Vietnam say that the company has reduced its output as merchants and warehouses struggle with growing inventories due to a global decline in consumer spending.
In an exclusive report published in Reuters, a dozen workers interviewed outside the factory almost all claimed that business was not good. One of the workers said that they are going to work just three days instead of six days per week, with some lines adjusting to a four-day workweek, and without overtime.
Samsung has earlier warned that the demand for chip from smartphone and PC makers would slowdown further as consumers shop less. According to the Vietnamese government, the effect is most noticeable in the northern province of Thai Nguyen, one of Samsung’s two mobile manufacturing facilities in the country, where the largest smartphone vendor in the world produces half of its phone output.
With six facilities spread out across the nation, from the factory in Ho Chi Minh City that produce refrigerators and washing machines to the factories in Thai Nguyen and Bac Ninh in the North, Samsung is Vietnam’s largest foreign investment and exporter.
Vietnam’s economic growth has been fuelled by the $18 billion investment from Samsung. The South Korean company alone contributes one fifth of all exports from Vietnam.
Samsung also makes mobile phones in South Korea and India. As of this writing, Samsung has not disclose if it is shifting production to other manufacturing countries to make up for reduced output from the Vietnamese factory.
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