Semiconductor engineers are a hot commodity these days, with companies offering record salaries and incentives to entice switching over. South Korea has some of the world's top semiconductor engineers, and it's becoming costly for local giants like Samsung to retain them as US companies are actively recruiting them.Samsung is having to spend billions more to retain employeesKorean media is reporting that US companies like Micron and SanDisk are recruiting South Korean engineers that have expertise in high-bandwidth memory, NAND flash, and other crucial technologies.Both of these companies are hiring research and development employees for positions based in Seoul, Samsung's literal backyard.This is pushing companies like Samsung and SK Hynix to increase salaries and stock awards to retain them. Samsung's workforce has declined slightly in the first half of this year, even as total employee compensation has increased. Its total spend on employee salaries has increased by 6.8% over the previous year, from $5.59 billion to $5.97 billion. Total salary related expenses, which include long-term incentives and stock compensation, has increased from $6.29 billion a year earlier to a whopping $19.21 billion.Higher incentives are critical to ensure that semiconductors don't move to overseas competitors who are actively competing against Samsung to gain a bigger share of the lucrative memory market as the AI momentum builds and increases demand for memory technologies.