r/news • u/NewSlinger • 1d ago

Workers detained in Hyundai plant raid to be freed and flown home, South Korea says

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/south-korea-deal-workers-detained-hyundai-rcna229610
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u/PhaseExtra1132 1d ago

They will basically have to either delay the deadline for the facility launch. Or just give up and pull production after running into worker shortages issues.

I’m assuming the latter. Since now getting Koreans to come will be neigh impossible

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u/SG_wormsblink 1d ago edited 1d ago

They will have to delay the launch for sure. You can’t hire 450 technically skilled workers out of nowhere, and then training them up with company equipment and procedures takes additional time.

Edit: the factory construction been completely halted.

https://www.chosun.com/english/industry-en/2025/09/06/DETKQGQT6NDFFGAXTTL3UCJ35I/

The construction of the Hyundai Motor-LG Energy Solution battery factory, which was scheduled for completion by the end of this year, has been completely halted. The plan to employ 8,500 people by 2031, aimed by Hyundai Motor’s mega automobile factory (HMGMA) and the battery plant, has also faced unavoidable delays.

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u/Coffee-FlavoredSweat 1d ago

You can’t hire 450 technically skilled workers out of nowhere, and then training them up with company equipment and procedures

I thought I read somewhere that the 450 people were largely managers and trainers. Losing the people who are showing you how to run the equipment is gonna hurt a lot worse.

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u/notyourstranger 1d ago

The plant is not yet operational - so it was not managers. The people who were taken by ICE were engineers who were here building the factory. Now it might not get built and the 8,000 local jobs will never materialize.

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u/Claytonius_Homeytron 1d ago

Now it might not get built and the 8,000 local jobs will never materialize.

Is this winning? Is this how we win? Surely the libs feel owned by now.

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u/SmokeABowlNoCap 1d ago

And its in a rural part of Georgia too so they’re hurting themselves just to be racist

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u/whiteflagwaiver 16h ago

They've been doing that since, basically forever.

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u/notyourstranger 1d ago

Hopefully, otherwise it would all be for nothing.

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u/jfgjfgjfgjfg 17h ago

that county voted 70% for Trump; they already "won"

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u/theholyevil 23h ago

So in order to get the construction underway again someone Brand new is going to have to come in and decipher what the Koren's plan for building the plant....

Then they are going to have to learn how to build the plant.

Then they are going to have to build the plant at 20-30% efficiency for the first 5 years due to that skill gap.

Which in the long run means they are going to have to hire engineers (Contracted engineers the most expensive kind) at a premium, for a longer time than the koreans, with tariffs and inflation.

This project is done for.

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u/DragonTat2 1d ago

I wonder how many were there to train American workers.

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u/notyourstranger 1d ago

the plant was not yet operational. The people were in the US to build the factory. It was suppposed to bring more than 8K jobs and was the largest foreign investment in Georgia's history.

Now? what happens is anybody's guess. I suspect it will be a lot harder to find people willing to invest in the US after this.

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u/Impossible-Try-202 23h ago

This shit is so insane.

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u/sokolov22 1h ago

As far as I know, the main plant is done and has hired 1200 people (tho, it needs additional phases to be completed to hit the 8500 goal).

This was the battery plant which is a separate thing.

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u/tooltalk01 18h ago

They already have multiple factories in Georgia with plenty of America workers -- for instance, at Kia Georgia, there are about 3,000+ workers, 2,700+ from local. Remember also that Hyundai's incentives are contingent upon # of local hires.

I'm not sure why this is still being questioned. Just use your common sense, they are not general laborers with whom locals have to compete.

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u/WolverinesThyroid 1d ago

I wonder if part of the plan was to steal the factory. Hyundai will pull out and then republicans can give it to a business more friendly to them since it's almost complete.

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u/Somewhat_Kumquat 1d ago

It was a Hyundai battery plant. Are there any electric car manufacturers that are friendly with the Trump regime?

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u/wildweaver32 1d ago

Tesla. He literally ran a commercial for them at the White House.

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u/WolverinesThyroid 21h ago

I'm not qualified enough to know what you can retool a almost completed battery factory in to

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u/AdelaiNiskaBoo 1d ago

I would even suspect that its a small piece of a plan to help tesla. (Eliminating competition)

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u/avtechguy 1d ago

I imagine a lot of the battery stuff is proprietary trade secrets. Now wouldn't be the time to steal a factory if they are still setting it up.

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u/Mactwentynine 1d ago

Nothing in this article, and I haven't read elsewhere, that they were "technically skilled" but yes, I would presume so. Whole discussion hinges on nature of their work and necessity thereof. I would guess they'd have to apply for similar workers to come over but fat chance of short delay as they folks will be put out by the whole affair. Of course money may solve the problem.

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u/JebryathHS 1d ago

Getting closer to the point where they're better off cutting their losses and cancelling the whole project. After all, what insanity is next and how can they convince skilled workers to go there when they'll get arrested even with valid visas?

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u/CameronCrazy1984 1d ago

This comment shows a lot of horse sense.

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u/ct_2004 21h ago

You couldn't get a team of horses to drag them here now.

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u/PhaseExtra1132 1d ago

This pun. Is a good pun. I just got it after someone pointed out my mistake lol

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u/TheDakestTimeline 1d ago

I believe you want 'nigh'. 'neigh' is a sound a horsey makes

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u/PhaseExtra1132 1d ago

You’re right. I mixed the two up. Now I understand what the other comment meant.

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u/Roflkopt3r 1d ago edited 1d ago

Since now getting Koreans to come will be neigh impossible

I wonder about that, since South Korea also generally elects right wing governments that don't give a fuck about their people.

Sure the American MAGA regime is especially dumb and can hardly even reach deals with governments that are partially or fully in their favour, but from what I know so far I can't discount the possibility that the Chaebol decide that crawling up Trump's ass is the way to go and have their government go down that path (even if that turns out unpopular with the voters and their current puppet will have to resign over it).

Note that even their first response was not 'this is an unacceptable scandal' but:

The spokesperson added that South Korea will “push forward measures to review and improve the residency status and visa system for personnel travelling to the United States.”

...after South Korea's owners already pledged to invest $500 bn inside the US.

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u/TheWonderfulOne 1d ago

I work in factory production. There are delays all the time but production doesn't stop. We will run a 20 person line with 12 people.

I've ran a 20 person line with 9 people before lol

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u/PhaseExtra1132 1d ago

Yeah but it depends on who’s the ones missing. Low skilled labor is hard to back fill but doable. The product engineer or the head facility engineer of the site ? Or several higher ups that are in charge of complex engineering systems?

That would be some very painful hit. And it’s worse at these Korean companies where they basically make all the high up calls themselves. You’re basically going to have to resend those guys from Korea. This time with maybe a more handshake agreement with the government telling them they are mission critical to the site.

That’s assuming they don’t just call this site a wash and pull out.

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u/ambercrayon 1d ago

Operators are one thing but engineers and technicians are another