Corporate
The South Carolina Samsung Effect
10/9/2023
In 2017, Samsung Electronics Home Appliances America (SEHA) established the company’s first U.S.-based home appliance manufacturing facility in Newberry County, South Carolina. When Samsung first announced plans to build a state-of-the-art home appliance factory the year prior, a litany of new business opportunities soon followed.
Since then, the Newberry facility has become an essential part of the local economy, generating nearly $500 million in capital investment for the region and now directly supporting over 1,500 jobs for local residents as part of its ongoing operations. The so-called “Samsung effect” has trickled into the Newberry community in more ways than one.
“When SEHA came we saw hotels being built and new restaurants. The community has just exploded,” said Bobby Stevens, SEHA Production Manager. “Everywhere you turn you have new housing developments coming, new restaurants are coming, so the whole community is growing as a whole.”
For small businesses like Figaro the Dining Room, a restaurant located in downtown Newberry, the global company’s presence has provided much needed support and an added sense of security. Over time, it’s become a symbiotic relationship – Samsung uses Figaro for catering services often and its employees are also regular patrons at the restaurant.
“For a town to get better, you have to have people, so with these bigger corporations like Samsung coming in, they’re bringing in good-paying jobs which makes the economy and the town better, which I think is very important because I want to live here the rest of my life,” said John Worthington, Figaro Executive Chef. “We need those plant jobs to help push things along. Not everything can be done by small business. Small businesses cannot employ 1,000 people. But once that company comes in, it’s our job to keep them here and not have them move to some other place or go eat at some other place, we have to add to their lifestyle.”