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Luxury good sellers in South Korea's Gyeonggi Province, home to major tech companies, are reporting a massive increase in sales following huge bonus payouts for memory workers at SK Hynix and Samsung.
Citing Chosun Daily, Tom's Hardware reports that luxury jewelry sales in some locations last month were up 150%, while luxury watch sales rose as much as 85%.
While the world struggles to get enough NAND Flash chips to build anything, memory makers like Samsung, SK Hynix, and Micron are raking in the cash, and many employees are benefiting. After threatening to strike, for example, Samsung Electronics Co. union members secured an average bonus of about $340,000, Bloomberg reports.
Suddenly flush with cash, workers are looking to spend it. Hyundai Department Stores reported a 32% increase in luxury goods sales nationwide last month and a 37% increase in high-end clothing brand sales, Tom's Hardware notes.
Although this trend may ease as workers get their luxury dream-buys out of their system, there's a good chance it only accelerates as these workers become part of a new middle class. SK Hynix workers received close to half a million dollars in bonus payments in 2026 and are on track to receive a further $900,000 each next year. That's a lot of new, disposable income that is likely to find its way into the South Korean economy one way or another.