SEOUL—More than 100,000 members of Samsung Electronics Co.’s professional workforce have made a bold ask: Give us a nearly 16% raise.

From semiconductor engineers to smartphone designers, Samsung’s South Korea-based employees—nearly half of its global workforce—are asking for their largest base-salary bump in the company’s history, according to current and former employees, plus internal communications among co-workers reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.

Staffers...

SEOUL—More than 100,000 members of Samsung Electronics Co.’s professional workforce have made a bold ask: Give us a nearly 16% raise.

From semiconductor engineers to smartphone designers, Samsung’s South Korea-based employees—nearly half of its global workforce—are asking for their largest base-salary bump in the company’s history, according to current and former employees, plus internal communications among co-workers reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.

Staffers point to rising living costs, improved labor productivity and the tech giant’s strong revenues as reasons for wanting an increase of 15.7% in the base wage, according to the internal communications that worker negotiators sent this month to fellow employees. They are also seeking boosts to other employee benefits, such as expanded family healthcare coverage, the message reads.

The latest requests come as Samsung contends with a new group of tech challengers wooing workers in its home country of South Korea, changing expectations from younger employees and separate salary negotiations with the company’s first-ever labor unions, according to employees and Samsung watchers.

Samsung, based in Suwon, South Korea, declined to comment on the forces driving the workers’ salary requests or rising competition. But it confirmed that talks are continuing with the unions and with the “Work Council” where representatives of Samsung’s South Korean employees and management meet annually to decide on compensation and other benefits. The company “is making every sincere effort to come to an agreement,” Samsung said in a statement.

Riding a strong year for semiconductors and resilience in smartphone demand, Samsung posted its best-ever annual sales of roughly $233 billion in 2021, an 18% increase from the prior year. Net profit for the year also rose more than 50%.

Samsung, which has prioritized retaining younger employees, has made efforts to share gains from the strong performance with its workforce. Late last year, the company cited special worker bonuses as a reason for issuing lower-than-expected operating-profit guidance.

Samsung has long operated without a worker’s union. Over the years, a handful of employee representatives from Samsung’s major business divisions held annual Work Council talks with management about wages and workers’ demands.

Last year, the workers asked for a base-pay hike of 6.36% before the two sides agreed to a 4.5% base-pay increase plus other incentives tied to employees’ individual performance.

Workers around the world are seeking more compensation and other benefits amid growing inflation, labor shortages and rising competition. This is particularly true in the tech sector that has recorded robust profits throughout the pandemic, as business benefited from major shifts in how people work, learn and entertain. Some tech giants are even now turning to cash, rather than stock options, as a way to entice and keep talent.

Tens of thousands of American workers are on strike and thousands more are attempting to unionize. WSJ examines the roots of this new labor activity and speaks with a labor economist for more context on U.S. labor’s changing landscape. Photo: Alyssa Keown/AP The Wall Street Journal Interactive Edition

For decades, Samsung had its pick of South Korea’s brightest college graduates and kept them around, having awarded generous pay, perks and benefits relative to the local competition, former executives and company watchers say. More recently, other internet firms and startups in the country have had success capturing workers by touting more relaxed work environments, competitive salaries and perks such as stock options, they say.

“Work-and-life balance is more important. Younger workers care more about the money rather than pride,” said Chang Sea-jin, who has authored books about Samsung’s rise and is a business professor at the National University of Singapore.

The relatively new group of Samsung challengers in the broader tech sector includes e-commerce player Coupang Inc., which went public last year in the U.S. in one of the year’s biggest listings, and local mobile giant

Kakao Corp. , whose founder recently took the title of South Korea’s wealthiest individual—becoming the first non-Samsung leader to hold that distinction in more than a decade.

Last year, South Korea’s internet and tech companies greenlighted big wage increases to attract talent as business boomed during the pandemic, putting pressure on others to match, said Nam Sung-woon, a former Samsung human-resources manager who is CEO of Cucurbita Inc., a Seoul-based firm that consults job seekers.

Samsung is contending with a new group of tech challengers who are wooing workers in South Korea.

Photo: kim hee-chul/Shutterstock

“Samsung Electronics employees are saying, I work for a top-tier, global company. But why should I be getting paid less than these smaller firms?” Mr. Nam said.

Samsung Electronics’ average annual compensation per person stood at 127 million won, roughly equivalent to $106,000, in 2020, according to its annual report. But its once-sizable pay gap with other South Korean tech peers has narrowed in recent years, according to independent salary estimates based on public disclosures.

South Koreans are also exchanging information about compensation and work conditions across different companies and industries like never before, according to a recent report by the government-funded Korea Labor Institute. They are using apps like Blind, which is a cross of sorts between LinkedIn and Glassdoor, where employees can comment anonymously after providing their company email.

Samsung is the world’s largest maker of smartphones, semiconductors and televisions. It sells products in nearly every country around the globe. But keeping talent in its home country is particularly important.

Virtually all of Samsung’s top leaders are South Korean. Touting the need for fresh ideas late last year, Samsung replaced its co-CEOs who had spent decades climbing the ranks with leaders who largely fit the same profile—but were just a few years younger.

Among Samsung’s South Korean workforce, the first attempt at collective bargaining—and activism—is under way.

Over the years, dozens of top officials, including the chairman of Samsung Electronics’ board, have been convicted of union busting. In 2020, Lee Jae-yong, Samsung’s twice-imprisoned de facto leader, made an unprecedented apology for shortcomings that included quashing union efforts and vowed workers could bargain collectively and engage in peaceful assembly.

Last year, Samsung formally recognized labor unions for the first time, paving the way for allowing four groups to be created that represent a diverse range of the companies’ workforce. Their collective membership stands at about 4% of Samsung’s South Korea workforce.

The unions’ salary negotiations are separate from the broader group’s ask of a 15.7% increase to base wages. One of the unions’ key requests is to give every member a flat annual salary increase of 10 million South Korean won, the equivalent of roughly $8,350.

Those talks have stalled with management, say union leaders, who have threatened more drastic action.

“We also do not want to have to halt our semiconductor lines…but if it becomes our only option, we are willing to go on a strike,” said Lee Hyun-kuk, a union leader, during a recent press conference outside of Samsung’s downtown Seoul offices.

Write to Jiyoung Sohn at jiyoung.sohn@wsj.com