Samsung eliminates 739 positions in New Jersey as it moves its US headquarters to Texas.

      The glass campus in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, is just under a year old. Samsung inaugurated it in September 2025 to take the place of its Ridgefield Park headquarters, which it had occupied since 1992. Currently, about 739 employees there are being informed they can either move to Texas with the company or start searching for new jobs. This figure comes from a Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification submitted to the state.

      Samsung Electronics America has joined an extensive list of tech layoff announcements as it moves into 2026, although the company prefers its workforce reductions not to be viewed in that manner. This division is responsible for selling phones, televisions, displays, and home appliances in the US, distinct from its semiconductor operations.

      Approximately 1,200 people are employed in New Jersey, meaning the 739 impacted positions represent nearly 62% of the workforce at that location. All were informed on June 30 about what the company described as an “enterprise-wide reduction in force.”

      These job cuts are associated with a relocation rather than a decline in business. Samsung plans to shift the division’s headquarters to Texas by the end of 2026, consolidating its US consumer operations closer to the state where it has invested billions in chip manufacturing. The company asserts that most affected employees in New Jersey have received offers to relocate instead of termination notices.

      “This process could result in changes to our workforce structure, particularly for those employees who cannot make the move,” the company stated, portraying the effort as a reorganization aimed at enhancing “stronger collaboration and optimising the organisation.” Whether an employee views this as a relocation or a layoff largely depends on their ability to move a household across the country.

      New Jersey is not the only location undergoing changes. Reports regarding the move indicate an additional approximately 100 roles will be eliminated at Samsung’s Plano, Texas campus, along with about 179 at Samsung SDS America in Ridgefield Park, which is the town the company has only just vacated.

      The WARN Act aims to ensure transparency in such situations, requiring large employers to announce mass layoffs with a 60-day notice, which is why this corporate relocation appears as a public filing rather than an internal memo.

      Samsung has not revealed severance details for those opting not to relocate, nor the number of relocation offers it anticipates will be accepted by workers. The timing of the announcement is also significant. The company is reducing its US consumer-electronics staff in the same quarter where its semiconductor division is achieving record profits, highlighting a growing disparity between the two sectors.

      In the second quarter, group operating profits reached around 89 trillion won, marking a record and nearly a 19-fold increase compared to the previous year, driven by demand for high-bandwidth memory used in AI data centers. However, the mobile and consumer divisions, which the Englewood Cliffs campus supports, have faced a much tougher year due to declining smartphone sales and the rising costs of memory chips sold at a premium by its sibling division.

      This division of performance is evident throughout the entire business, as the memory boom that pushed Samsung's market value over $1 trillion earlier this year has not benefitted the divisions that sell Galaxy phones and smart appliances, where Apple and tightening margins create pressure from both sides.

      This pattern is prevalent across the industry, where headcount reductions have become a common strategy, as seen with Meta's own workforce cuts. State officials have largely remained silent on the matter. Englewood Cliffs is part of Representative Josh Gottheimer’s district, and his office had not provided a public response at the time the filing was made public.

      For those mentioned in the notice, the corporate calculations are secondary. They face a choice between remaining in New Jersey or relocating to Texas, and their decision deadline coincides with the end of the year.