{"id":542591,"date":"2026-07-15T11:45:14","date_gmt":"2026-07-15T11:45:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/542591\/"},"modified":"2026-07-15T11:45:14","modified_gmt":"2026-07-15T11:45:14","slug":"what-defines-excess-profits-and-who-should-benefit-from-them","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/542591\/","title":{"rendered":"What defines ‘excess’ profits and who should benefit from them?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"A<\/p>\n

A delivery worker passes in front of an SK hynix chip plant in Icheon, Gyeonggi Province, in this file photo from Oct. 29, 2025. Chip giants’ artificial intelligence\u2011driven windfall profits fuel debate over how to share \u201cexcess gains\u201d with the wider society. Newsis <\/p>\n

The debate over how to share the windfall gains from the artificial intelligence (AI) semiconductor boom is growing louder in Korea by the day. <\/p>\n

The discussion usually centers on whether the larger-than-expected, or so-called \u201cexcess,\u201d profits should be shared with other partners who contributed to the earnings, and how the company \u2014 or the government \u2014 should spend them.<\/p>\n

Yet basic questions remain unresolved: What, exactly, counts as \u201cexcess gains,\u201d and who has a legitimate claim on it?<\/p>\n

\u201cThe government keeps talking about win-win growth and telling us to share \u2018excess profits\u2019 with subcontractors, but no one can explain what \u2018excess\u2019 actually means,\u201d an official from the chip industry told The Korea Times on condition of anonymity. \u201cHow much gain is \u2018normal,\u2019 and at what point does it become excess? Who gets to set that standard?\u201d <\/p>\n

He also pointed out the current discussion lacks clarity in identifying who the profit “contributors” are.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhich partner firms can really be said to have contributed to those profits? Maybe the ones that make key components, but what about companies that provided us furniture or office supplies? How can one decide which company contributed to what percentage of the profits?\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\"Labor<\/p>\n

Labor Minister Kim Young-hoon delivers an opening speech at a government-hosted forum tackling social and artificial intelligence technological innovation at the Peace & Park Convention Center in Seoul, Tuesday. Yonhap<\/p>\n

This frustration was shared by speakers at Tuesday\u2019s government forum focusing on charting a \u201cnew path to social innovation,\u201d where labor, business and academic experts clashed over how far AI profit-sharing should go \u2014 and on what legal and economic basis, with some questioning whether policymakers have even agreed on what \u201cexcess gains\u201d means in the first place.<\/p>\n

Jung Heung-jun, a labor expert from Seoul National University of Science and Technology, noted that what officials are calling \u201cexcess gains\u201d are simply profits far above a company\u2019s past performance, based on the company’s own benchmarks.<\/p>\n

He suggested that as long as Korea has not even settled on whether \u201cexcess gains\u201d should be calculated from operating profit or net profit, arguments over how much to share \u2014 and with whom \u2014 will continue to be fought in a conceptual fog rather than on clear rules.<\/p>\n

Yoon Dong\u2011yeol, a business professor at Konkuk University, echoed the concern, saying the very notion of \u201cexcess profits\u201d remains vague and that the chip industry is highly exposed to global boom-and-bust cycles.<\/p>\n

\"Korea<\/p>\n

Korea Times graphic by Cho Sang-won<\/p>\n

This debate comes after Samsung Electronics and SK hynix, the nation\u2019s two semiconductor giants, reported record-high operating profits on the back of AI\u2011driven chip demand, triggering fierce disputes over the unprecedented size of bonus payouts to employees. At Samsung, in particular, some regular employees received individual bonuses reaching as high as 600 million won ($402,000) each, sparking questions over whether it is really justifiable for such windfalls to go almost entirely to a relatively narrow group of insiders while subcontractors, irregular workers and local communities see little direct benefit.<\/p>\n

After next year\u2019s minimum wage was set at 10,700 won per hour the same day, Kwon Soon-won, head of the Minimum Wage Commission, noted that many workers at their partner firms who handle cleaning and facilities management \u201calso contributed to the performance,\u201d adding that \u201cit would be good if at least a portion were shared with small merchants and small firms.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Korea<\/p>\n

Korea Times graphic by Cho Sang-won<\/p>\n

At the forum, experts largely agreed that the unprecedented profits being made by chip giants could accelerate polarization between secure insiders at large firms and the vast majority of workers in smaller ones. Some argued that the government should respond not just with quick profit\u2011sharing demands, but by using additional tax revenue more strategically \u2014 for example, to build investment funds that support AI training and stronger safety nets.<\/p>\n

Yoon argued that the answer in the AI era should be less about dividing this year\u2019s surplus and more about building the capacity for future growth.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the past, the idea of social solidarity was to share the outcome, but in the future, the paradigm has to be social solidarity investment \u2014 a form of solidarity that creates the very performance we want to share by investing in people, skills and the industrial ecosystem,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The Ministry of Employment and Labor, which earlier floated the idea of finding ways to share \u201cexcess gains,\u201d has yet to come up with detailed policy ideas. <\/p>\n

A ministry spokeswoman said there have been no decisions on concrete criteria or policy framework for the AI and semiconductor gains or how to share them, and that the discussion is still in a very early stage.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe do not intend to decide in advance what counts as excess gains, how much of it should be shared or by what method,\u201d she said. \u201cRather, the aim is to foster a social discussion.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A delivery worker passes in front of an SK hynix chip plant in Icheon, Gyeonggi Province, in this…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":542592,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[345,343,344,85,46,125],"class_list":["post-542591","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-ai","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificialintelligence","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/542591","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=542591"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/542591\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/542592"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=542591"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=542591"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=542591"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}