Author by, RussianRoulette,
"80 people quit, the company is throwing away their artists and staff members," Alleged employees talk about the chaos at SM Entertainment
Recently, employees of SM Entertainment voiced their concerns on an anonymous online community, shedding light on the company's alleged mismanagement. This mismanagement has reportedly prompted a significant number of employees to resign.
On April 10, an SM employee created a post titled, 'So (SM) is throwing away their employees and their artists,' on the popular anonymous employee online community called 'Blind.' Blind is an app where people can talk about their jobs anonymously. Users are verified via their work email. The poster alleged that the new executives managing the company have not done a proper job operating the label and exposed the chaos that is occurring within.
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I feel like this technically should go under netizen hub, but I wanted to focus on the info provided in the article over the netizen's opinions so i'm posting this here.
There has pretty much been a mass exodus at SM over this past month.
- Over the past few months a lot of Super Junior and EXO members have left.
- This past month we have had Shinee's Taemin and Onew leave for new companies. Two of Shinee's choreographers have also left sm and joined Taemin at BPM, and it has also been observed that Taemin's entire team has pretty much left SM with him and followed him to BPM. (Manager Euisoo is still at SM, much to many fans dismay since many did not want them to be separated. Euisoo has now been seen managing Minho.)
- 3 out of the 5 Red Velvet members still have yet to renew their contract. I would also like to note that over the years Red Velvet has been noted to have a declining team behind them as well, with the members having to do a lot of work with promoting their comeback.
- NCT and WayV's Ten has "subtly" dropped a hint that he wants to leave SM in the future during a recent show:
(He tried to play it off as his Korean wasn't good so he "didn't understand", but no one is buying it we all know what he meant 
)
- Boa has revealed that she would like to retire from the industry following her contract ending in December 2025.
- Very recently, there has been been news of Seunghan from RIIZE leaving due to him now being on hiatus for longer than he was active in the group, the fact that they re-recorded this comeback song to no longer include his vocals, and in recent promotions for the group such as fan meetings and some concerts that are coming up Seunghan has now been edited out/removed from photos and the group is now being promoted as 6 members. Up until now the company would always include photo's of the group that included all 7 members for promotional activites and just specify that one member is on hiatus.
Along with artist, MANY more SM employees have been leaving as well.
Shinee's Taemin revealed in a live awhile ago how SM employees are overworked, not appreciated, and underpaid, and how unhappy he was with it.
A recent article on Pannchoa revealed over 80+ employees quit SM just last month.
In 2023 it was reported that SM had around 600 employees. If you combine that 80+ with everyone else who has left i'd guess at least 100 people have left SM recently which is about 1/6 of their entire company which is a lot.
Is was revealed that Kwangya 119, which is an app fans can use to report defamation or copyright issues and such about their artists to sm so that they can take legal action, is pretty much a front and nothing is ever done with what is reported.
Employees complained that the higher-ups are always looking for even the smallest excuses to use to threaten people to cut salaries. Salaries are also not being disclosed even after working there for a long period of time, resulting in people just getting paid randomly not even knowing if they are receiving the correct amount of money.
Additionally, just like how SM artists pretty much have no protection against saesangs, doxxers, and hate online, SM employees are complaining they are getting doxxed as well and SM is taking no action.
Do you think we will soon face the end of SM? Or at least see SM drop out of "the big three" along with YG who has been on a decline? What are your thoughts?
I am putting my 2 cents after this break.
I feel like this image pretty much describes SM right now:
The news of Ten wanting to leave SM right after it was announced that he left the dorms and got his own apartment hit me hard. I know in China Winwin's already got his own apartment, and tbh he's not even in Korea long enough for us to know if he's still at the dorms.
I'm honestly kind of scared to see the what will happen when we hit NCT contract renewal season since i'm sure this will add more fuel to the fire. I'm certain Winwin will leave since he's pretty much barely part of WayV anymore anyways, though i'm honestly scared to see WayV's future if Ten leaves. I know he will be fine with a solo career, but if both Winwin and Ten leave SM i'm entirely certain we will disbandment news for Wayv 
I feel bad for the SM employee's as well. If you hate an artist doxxing an innocent employee who probably has nothing to do with anything isn't going to solve anything. They don't deserve that.
