Samsung freezes salaries amid falling profits

South Korea's top tech firm Samsung Electronics Co. said Thursday it has decided to freeze paychecks for its employees for 2015, as the world's No.1 handset maker struggles to bounce back from a slump in its mainstay mobile business that ate into overall profits.
A Samsung official said the company plans to fix salaries for its workers for 2015.
Overall performance incentives, which depends on profits, are not included in the plan.
"It is true that the management and employees have reached an agreement on fixing the wage," a spokesman of Samsung Electronics told South Korean news agency Yonhap.
Samsung Electronics posted a net profit of 23.4 trillion won ($21.2 billion) in 2014, sharply falling 23.2 percent from the 30.5 trillion won the previous year.
Operating profits from the mobile business, the company's mainstay, plunged 64 percent on-year to 1.96 trillion won in the fourth quarter, compared with 5.47 trillion won a year earlier.
The company, meanwhile, will also adopt a flexible work hour system this year for all business divisions, except for manufacturing employees, the official added.