Research and development engineers working for small and medium mobile phone manufacturers are increasingly moving to large businesses, causing concern over predominance by heavyweights in the R&D area.
According to industry sources, smaller players in the mobile phone industry are having difficulties hiring R&D staff, while large businesses such as Samsung Electronics, LG Electronics and Pantech & Curitel successfully increasing workforce at home and abroad.
The three largest manufacturers took 55% of the entire R&D workforce last year, and the figure is expected to rise to more than 70% by the year`s end.
Those who once worked for large businesses and moved to smaller firms are, in particular, returning to old jobs. "We were worrying about the brain drain only about one to two years ago, but now researchers are keeping coming back from smaller manufacturers," said a personnel manager at a large business.
Samsung Electronics recently beefed up its mobile phone R&D workforce to more than 500, and hired mobile phone software engineers in an open competition. "The workforce is expected to be around 3,000 this year, up from some 2,200 last year," said a manager at the company. "We plan to hire competent engineers on an irregular base."
LG Electronics has decided to increase the mobile phone R&D workforce to 2,500 this year from the existing 700. The company has been winning back development engineers from small and medium companies. "We hope to double the workforce to 4,000 through 2007," said a manager at the company.
Pantech is poised to hire some 200 new R&D staff in an open competition, aiming to beef up the workforce from 1,500 to 1,800 by this year`s end. "We plan to employ experienced researchers this year unlike the past when college graduates took most of the R&D workforce," said a source from the company.
SK Telecom recently beefed up the development workforce from 380 to 450, and plans to increase the figure to 500 by the end of this year.
Small and medium mobile phone makers are, however, having hard times finding R&D engineers. Telsom Electronics saw its R&D workforce decline from 450 at the end of last year down to 300.
Sewon Telecom, which recently filed for bankruptcy, has lost most of its R&D staff to large businesses. A mobile phone development firm, where R&D staff takes some 80% of the entire workforce, is also having hard times keeping its brains from moving to larger companies.
"Seeing sagging sales and weak profitability, even an entire research team is leaving the company," said CEO of a development firm. "They are eager to move to another company for money."
"I moved to a mobile phone venture, expecting that the company would get listed on the Kosdaq market and become a major tech firm," said a 32-year-old Jeong, who moved back to a large company from a small venture late last year. "As small and medium businesses continue struggling to boost sales, developers now prefer better working conditions and salaries."