Kakao's headquarters labor union is demanding in this year's wage and performance compensation talks that "13–14% of last year's operating profit be paid as performance bonuses," heightening tension across the platform industry. The formula of a "performance bonus linked to operating profit," which labor unions at large manufacturing corporations such as Samsung Electronics have demanded, appears to be spreading to information technology (IT) platform companies.
But some say the demand is excessive when considering Kakao's operating profit size and business structure. Kakao's operating profit last year was 732 billion won. If 13–14% of operating profit is used for performance bonuses as the union demands, about 95 billion–102.5 billion won would be needed. Given that Samsung Electronics is a global electronics company that posted 43.6 trillion won in operating profit last year, even a similar demand in the 10% range carries a completely different weight.
◇ Kakao union secures the right to strike… "It's hard to make compensation gaps the basis for allocating operating profit"
According to the industry on the 28th, Kakao labor and management held an eight-hour negotiation the previous day at the second mediation meeting of the Gyeonggi Regional Labor Relations Commission but failed to narrow differences. With the commission deciding to suspend mediation, the Kakao headquarters union has met the legal requirements to launch industrial action such as a strike. The Kakao union has signaled a strike next month, but plans to decide the detailed schedule and method after further discussions.
The biggest sticking point is the performance bonus structure. The headquarters union has demanded paying 13–14% of last year's operating profit as performance bonuses and excluding 5 million won worth of restricted stock units (RSUs) from performance bonuses. The union says the company has not presented transparent compensation criteria despite improved results.
With the headquarters union securing the right to strike, the possibility of a strike across the Kakao community has grown. Four affiliates—Kakao Enterprise, Kakao Pay, DK Techin, and XLGAMES—have already secured the right to strike due to suspended mediation decisions. Strike authorization votes at all five entities, including the headquarters, have passed. It is the first time since the company's founding that Kakao's headquarters and major affiliates have simultaneously reached the brink of a strike.
The Kakao union does not entirely lack grounds to challenge the compensation gap. Based on the 2025 business report, the average annual salary per employee at Naver is 146 million won, and at Kakao it is 109 million won. Kakao employees' average pay is about 37 million won less than Naver's, or about 75% of Naver's level. However, it is also hard to conclude that Kakao employees receive low wages. Kakao's average salary already exceeds 100 million won. Inside and outside the industry, some say, "The compensation gap with Naver is something the union can raise, but it is difficult to connect that to a logic that fixes a certain percentage of operating profit for distribution as bonuses."
◇ No card to halt production like manufacturing… management also falls short in making the case for its AI strategy
The industry expects the Kakao union's strike to unfold differently from the Samsung Electronics case. That is because the pressure effect of strikes differs between manufacturing and platform corporations. In semiconductor or automobile plants, when production lines stop, delivery schedules and supply chains are immediately disrupted. In contrast, Kakao is a service-based platform corporation. Many observers say that even if a strike actually occurs, the likelihood that core services such as KakaoTalk will stop immediately is low.
For this reason, the Kakao union's strike is likely to rely more on external symbolism, reputational burden, and weakened internal cohesion than on production disruptions. While it is burdensome that the corporation operating the national messenger would see its first joint strike since founding, some assess it is uncertain whether there would be tangible damage sufficient to move management.
There is also criticism that Kakao's improved results are not easy to translate directly into a large performance bonus pool. Kakao needs to strengthen artificial intelligence (AI) competitiveness, streamline noncore affiliates, and improve organizational efficiency at the same time. With growth across the platform industry slowing, allocating a fixed percentage of operating profit to performance bonuses could reduce capacity for future investment.
In particular, Kakao needs to narrow the gap with Naver in the AI transition. As expenses rise for AI infrastructure, talent acquisition, and service overhauls, the demand to separately set aside around 100 billion won for performance bonuses could clash with the company's investment priorities. For this reason, some in the industry criticize the union's demand as closer to prioritizing current profit distribution over future growth engines.
However, some say the conflict cannot be seen solely as the union's excessive demand for performance bonuses. Kakao's management also failed to show results persuasive enough to employees and the market during the AI transition and affiliate restructuring. Critics say management only emphasized a sense of crisis in words and did not present a sufficient, clear blueprint for which businesses to grow and which organizations to slim down. Kakao was once regarded as a representative corporation that led the shift to mobile platforms, but recently it has devoted more capacity to affiliate restructuring and expense management than to finding new growth engines. While the union pushes for distributing current profits, management has also failed to build trust in its future growth strategy, leading to assessments that neither labor nor management is free from responsibility.
An IT industry official said, "The demand to link performance bonuses rigidly to operating profit could undermine Kakao's investment capacity, but management also has not sufficiently shown how Kakao will grow after the AI transition," adding, "This conflict reveals not only the union's compensation demands but also Kakao management's lack of a growth strategy."