South Korea's Samsung confirmed that it will close down one of its two plants in Slovakia in the coming months. As the SME daily reported, the closure of the factory in Voderady, Trnava Region, with over 500 internal and 1,000 external employees, will probably take place in April. This step was announced 10 years after the plant's opening. The production should be moved to Samsung's other plant in Galanta, also in the Trnava region, where almost 1,500 people currently work internally and another 1,000 externally.
Ján Nemašík, compliance manager at Samsung Electronics Slovakia said that the company was taking this step "with an objective to manage more efficiently the production process in Slovakia". Labour Minister Ján Richter said that it would be important for him that during the rationalization the company should not discriminate Slovak employees and prefer foreigners who are willing to work for lower salaries.
According to the Denník N daily, the company is lacking production workers on the one hand, but on the other one of the causes for the situation is that there are not enough people willing to work for the salary offered by Samsung. Martin Jesný, analyst of the Revue Priemyslu magazine, perceives Samsung's decision as logical because the Voderady plant was opened with the intention to produce LCD panels, which are now old technology. "Thus, production in Voderady has become unnecessary and I consider it to be a rational business decision to close down a factory which the company is not able to use," said Jesný. As Vladimír Baláž, economist of the Prognostic Institute of the Slovak Academy of Sciences stressed, in 2011, Samsung received a €28 million state subsidy, which was its condition for staying in Slovakia. "It has recently ended and this might be a signal that it should receive further support," said Baláž.
