U.S. memory chipmaker Micron Technology will pay its Taiwan employees compensation worth up to 68 months of salary. As artificial intelligence (AI) demand has expanded and results have improved sharply, the company rolled out the largest compensation plan in its history as strike pressure mounted in Taiwan, its key manufacturing base.
On the 11th, according to Reuters and Bloomberg, Micron said it will pay Taiwan production workers, technicians and shift engineers compensation equal to 35 to 68 months of salary in fiscal 2026 (September last year to August this year). Micron said the package is the largest in the company's history.
Employees in Taiwan who joined before Aug. 29 last year will receive a one-time cash bonus of NT$1 million (about 42.5 million won). Separately, all Taiwan employees will also receive stock as part of the annual performance awards.
For entry-level engineers, the average total package of cash and stock is about NT$3.4 million (about 145 million won). Of that, cash compensation averages about NT$2.9 million (about 123 million won), with the remainder paid in stock.
The expanded compensation comes amid intensifying demands from local unions. Multiple unions representing about two-thirds of Micron's Taiwan workforce confirmed broad member support for a strike. Micron and the Taoyuan union also failed to reach an agreement at a recent mediation meeting and face further talks.
Earlier, the union demanded a one-time cash bonus equivalent to roughly seven years of employees' base pay. Bloomberg estimated that at an average of about $170,000 (about 230 million won) per employee. The union is also calling for a plan to distribute part of operating profit as performance pay to employees worldwide.
The union has cited the bonus systems at Samsung Electronics and SK hynix, arguing that the compensation gap between Korean rivals and Micron employees has widened. Reuters said Micron is seeking to avoid a situation in which labor disputes at a key manufacturing base spill into actual production disruptions.
Micron's net profit in the third quarter (March to May) of fiscal 2026 rose about 15 times from a year earlier. A favorable memory cycle driven by increased investment in AI infrastructure boosted results. Taiwan is one of Micron's core memory manufacturing bases. The local workforce is about 15,000. As demand for memory, including high bandwidth memory (HBM) for AI servers, surges, the importance of stable plant operations is also growing.