Bonus of 20,000 euros to keep employees at the company

On July 20, ASML confirmed with Reuters on plans to give employees stock bonuses worth 20,000 euros ($22,800) if they stay with the company from 2027 to 2030. The scheme is still in the works, but will be offered to “all eligible employees”. Bonus shares will begin to be paid from January 1, 2027.

The plan was launched by ASML in the context of the AI ​​wave driving demand for high-performance chips and chip manufacturing equipment. According to investors, this move also shows that ASML is strengthening its staff to meet the period of increased demand for advanced chips.

ASML currently has 44,500 employees globally. More than half of these are in the Netherlands and about 8,500 are in the US. Eindhovens Dagblad said the company has announced this plan to all employees via email.

ASML is Europe’s most valuable company, with a capitalization of nearly $700 billion. Thanks to the artificial intelligence (AI) boom, ASML stock has increased 60% since the beginning of the year.

This month, it announced second-quarter net profit of 2.92 billion euros and revenue of 9.3 billion euros. The company’s main line of photolithography machines is almost full of orders until the end of 2027. These results all exceed market forecasts.

In addition to ASML, many large companies in the semiconductor industry also launch employee retention policies. Previously, Samsung Electronics, TSMC and SK Hynix all announced large bonus payments in the context of increased profits, but lack of skilled labor.

According to sources of Reuters Last month, a Samsung memory chip manufacturing employee with a basic salary of 80 million won (about 52,400 USD), could receive a total bonus of about 626 million won (410,000 USD) this year. SK Hynix employees are likely to receive a bonus of over 700 million won (about 455,000 USD) if the company achieves a yearly profit of 250,000 billion won as expected.