SK hynix puts 60% of its bonus in stock, and payroll onto the share register

The pool being split is itself a function of the cycle. Last year's agreement removed the cap on profit sharing and funded it with 10% of operating profit, a structure both sides said would hold for ten years ^[11]. Paying most of that pool in stock, with shares equal to 40% of the total sellable in the year of payment and a further 20% released at 10% a year over the two years after ^[5], attaches the memory market to the same money twice: operating profit sets how large the pool is, and the share price sets what it is worth on the day it lands, and again in each of the two deferral years.

For anyone who takes the election on the 2026 bonus, year one is not a pay cut in cash terms. Cash comes to 80% of the pool ^[6], the same proportion last year's structure paid up front ^[11], a net change of nothing ^[16]. What moves is the default. Guaranteed cash falls from 80% to 40% of the pool, a gap of 40 points ^[15]; the deferral stays at two years and 10% a year, and only its currency changes from cash to shares ^[18]. The election is described as an exception for the 2026 payment ^[6], so the new structure bites on the bonus after this one.

The share count will be struck at the lowest of three closing prices: the earnings announcement, the cash payment date and the share payment date ^[10]. SK hynix presents this as stopping a rising price from shrinking the number of shares employees receive ^[10]. Read from the register's side, the same rule means the company parts with the most shares when the price is weakest, which tends to be when the operating profit funding the pool has already fallen. The source does not say whether those shares come from new issuance or from treasury stock, which is the difference between dilution and cash already spent, and it gives no figure for how much stock the bonus will absorb against the 40 trillion won SK hynix has proposed to buy and retire ^[9].

That leaves the vote. Members rejected tentative agreements in both 2023 and 2024 ^[4], a rejection sends that union back to the bargaining table ^[3], and some members are objecting that a bonus structure agreed for ten years has been rewritten in its first ^[12], nine years early ^[17]. Against that, management has loaded in items that pay out now: more in-house welfare points, congratulatory and condolence payments and funeral support, and an in-house mortgage of up to 200 million won extended from employees with multiple children to all married staff ^[13]. Relief on one side of the ledger, a pay component priced later on the other.