LG Electronics Completes Reassignment of Employees in Mobile Biz

Smartphones from LG Electronics Inc. are displayed at a store in Seoul on April 5, 2021. (Yonhap)

SEOUL, July 16 (Korea Bizwire) — With its exit from a loss-making mobile business scheduled to be formalized on July 31, LG Electronics Inc. recently completed the task of reassigning employees from the mobile communications (MC) business unit, a process that began in April.

According to LG Group, the parent of South Korean tech powerhouse, among about 3,300 employees in the MC division, about 18 percent or 600 employees were transferred to the group’s other subsidiaries.

About half of them or 300 employees were relocated to battery maker LG Energy Solution Ltd., which was spun off from LG Chem Ltd. late last year. At LG Energy Solution, they will open a new chapter in their life as R&D specialists.

LG Energy Solution originally planned to hire experienced employees to address its shortage of manpower, but filled a large part of its needs with the relocated employees, according to industry sources.

The remaining 2,700 employees from the MC division were reassigned to other divisions at LG Electronics. The top-performing Home Appliance and Air Solution (H&A) unit embraced the largest number of such employees.

Given that it’s common to see employees resisting and raising issues during the process of business liquidation and massive reassignment, the business community regarded LG Electronics’ relocation process as a rare case since there was no such resistance or noise surrounding the process.

“If the MC division was sold to a foreign business, including those in Vietnam, as the market speculated, there could have been strong resistance from employees,” an industry officials said.

J. S. Shin (js_shin@koreabizwire.com)