Samsung's chip division just booked a record $58.5 billion quarterly profit. Its US consumer electronics arm is cutting 739 jobs in New Jersey and laying off roughly 100 more in Texas.
Those two numbers tell the story of a company splitting in half. Samsung Electronics America filed a Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification with New Jersey on Sunday, listing 739 affected roles at its Englewood Cliffs campus. The site, which opened just 10 months ago replacing a Ridgefield Park office Samsung had used since 1992, employs about 1,200 people. The WARN notice covers more than 60% of that workforce.
A majority of affected New Jersey employees received relocation offers. Those who didn't were let go. At Samsung's Plano Texas office, roughly 100 workers, including mobile division staff, lost their jobs, according to a laid-off employee who spoke to Reuters anonymously.
The cuts come less than a year after Samsung announced in June it would move SEA's headquarters from New Jersey to its existing Plano campus by the end of 2026. New Jersey officials criticized the move at the time, citing Texas's lower taxes and business-friendly regulations.
Samsung said the relocation is meant to foster "stronger collaboration and optimize the organization by bringing more teams together within a growing technology and AI ecosystem." The company stressed there is no broad global restructuring underway in its consumer products business. But internal documents reviewed by Reuters show employees were notified of an "enterprise-wide reduction in force" on June 30.
A current SEA employee told Reuters that workers fear further cuts and a possible consolidation of the appliance, home entertainment, and mobile divisions as Samsung pours resources into chips. The timing explains the anxiety. Samsung's semiconductor division booked a preliminary $58.5 billion in second-quarter operating profit, a 19-fold year-on-year jump that surpassed Nvidia's most recent quarter. The company is on track to out-earn its entire 40-year semiconductor history in 2026.
Its mobile division is expected to post its first-ever quarterly loss over the same period, squeezed by Apple competition and the memory price increases its own chip unit is charging. Conventional DRAM contract prices rose 58% to 63% in Q2, and smartphone makers are raising handset prices to offset those costs.
The 739 New Jersey roles and roughly 100 Texas departures represent approximately 7% of Samsung's 11,770-person US workforce as of the end of 2025. Samsung SDS America, the company's IT services affiliate, warned in a separate June notice that 179 roles could be cut in Ridgefield Park, New Jersey.
Samsung's consumer arm is relocating to Texas alongside the company's existing chip footprint, which includes two fabs in Austin, the delayed Taylor fab, and a mobile hub in Plano. For the New Jersey employees who accept relocation, the move from the New York metro area to the Dallas-Fort Worth corridor comes with a September termination deadline for those who decline.
