Samsung, SK Hynix Bonuses May Lift Korea Growth by Up to 0.09 Point Next Year, BOK Says

Bigger bonuses at Samsung Electronics Co. and SK Hynix Inc. tied to the semiconductor boom could lift South Korea’s economic growth by as much as 0.09 percentage point next year as the payouts feed through to household spending, the Bank of Korea said.

In a report released on Aug. 31 titled “How Will Consumption Change in Regions Benefiting From Semiconductors? Spillover Effects Based on Regional Microdata,” the BOK said spending in Icheon and Hwaseong in Gyeonggi Province and Cheongju in North Chungcheong Province, where many employees of the two chipmakers live, ran as much as 4% higher than in other regions on a monthly basis after bonus payments began in earnest in January 2025.

The central bank used regional microdata to estimate how much of the bonuses paid by the two companies translated into actual consumption. It excluded the effects of wage increases at other information-technology companies, changes in asset prices and higher government tax revenue. The measure was based not on card spending recorded in those regions, but on actual spending by residents of Icheon, Hwaseong and Cheongju.

The analysis put additional consumption generated by the chip boom at about 1.1 trillion won ($794 million) from last year through June this year. If the current trend continues, the cumulative increase could reach 1.7 trillion won ($1.23 billion) by the end of this year. On an annual average basis for 2025 and 2026, that comes to about 800 billion won ($577 million), or roughly 2% of the 41.3 trillion won ($29.9 billion) increase in total private consumption last year.

The so-called consumption spillover rate, which measures the share of bonuses that is spent, was estimated at 27% in 2025 and 21% this year. On that basis, GDP levels were 0.01% higher last year and 0.03% higher this year than they would have been without the semiconductor upcycle, the BOK said.

The spillover effect is set to widen further next year because bonus payments from Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix are projected to increase about fivefold from this year. Depending on how much of that income is converted into spending, next year’s GDP level could rise 0.08% to 0.12%, while annual economic growth could increase by 0.06 to 0.09 percentage point.

Job growth will be a key variable in determining whether the semiconductor boom spreads more broadly through consumption, the BOK said. The chip industry tends to create relatively fewer jobs than the scale of its production growth would suggest. Still, domestic companies have recently been accelerating facility expansion plans to meet surging demand. The Korea Employment Information Service expects employment in the semiconductor industry to rise 5.1% in the second half from a year earlier.

Lee Jae-ho, a BOK deputy director, said an analysis of past boom cycles in the shipbuilding, steel, auto and chemical industries showed consumption effects were larger when total wage growth came through increased hiring rather than pay raises for existing workers.

The report also found that regional spillover effects depended on whether additional income such as bonuses flowed into consumption or asset markets. A comparison of Icheon and Cheongju, both home to SK Hynix operations, showed stronger consumption growth among semiconductor workers living in Cheongju. In Icheon, easier access to the Seoul metropolitan area meant some of the extra income was used to buy homes in nearby areas, while in Cheongju home purchases were more likely to take place within the region, the BOK said.

So far, the increase in spending has been concentrated in high-ticket discretionary items such as automobiles and department store purchases. As a result, the knock-on effect in which additional spending boosts income in other industries and generates further consumption remains limited, according to the analysis.

Still, the BOK said consumption could broaden into services and other categories after a time lag, as seen in past industrial booms. Lee said service spending in Ulsan rose quickly after workers’ wages increased during the auto and chemical industry boom in the early 2010s. Consumption driven by the semiconductor boom could also spread to a wider range of items over time.