Samsung Electronics America became the latest major employer to leave New Jersey when it announced earlier this month that it will move its U.S. headquarters from Englewood Cliffs to Plano, Texas, by the end of 2026. The decision pulls roughly 1,000 jobs out of a state that charges the highest corporate tax rate in the country — 11.5% — and hands them to a state with no corporate income tax at all.
That gap sits at the center of the story. New Jersey’s top corporate rate stands at 11.5%, the steepest in the nation. Texas has no traditional corporate income tax and no personal state income tax. For a global company weighing where to put its leadership, its money, and its people, the math is hard to ignore — and New Jersey keeps landing on the wrong side of it.
Samsung framed the move as internal strategy rather than a tax revolt. “Samsung Electronics America Inc. is undergoing a business transformation designed to better position our organization for long-term growth and future success,” the company said in a statement, adding that it is “relocating our U.S. headquarters from New Jersey to our existing campus in Plano, Texas, building on our 30-year presence in the state.” But to the people who watch corporate departures for a living, the reason is plain.
A five-alarm fire
“This is a five-alarm fire wake-up call,” said John Boyd Jr., founder of the Princeton-based relocation firm The Boyd Company. He noted that New Jersey cannot keep swimming upstream with new tax hikes while a neighboring competitor like Pennsylvania is cutting its corporate rate.
Michele Siekerka, president and CEO of the New Jersey Business & Industry Association, called the news “not surprising, but no less sad,” pointing straight at the state’s tax and regulatory climate. She said New Jersey has dropped from 22 Fortune 500 companies in 2018 to 15 in 2025. Samsung’s exit, she warned, is the predictable result of policies that make staying expensive.
What it means for the workers
The timing made the blow sharper. Samsung had cut the ribbon on its new Englewood Cliffs campus just nine months ago, on September 22, 2025, at a ceremony attended by state and local officials who praised it as proof of the company’s commitment to New Jersey. The company had moved into the former Unilever building at 700 Sylvan Avenue after decades in nearby Ridgefield Park.
Now those workers face a choice. Samsung told staff on a Friday in late May that they would need to say within two weeks whether they were willing to relocate, with details on individual jobs to follow by the end of June. Most are expected to be offered a transfer to Plano, while a smaller group will stay behind to handle local operations. The company has not said how many positions will be eliminated outright, but it acknowledged that layoffs are coming, saying it will be “optimizing parts of the organization” and will support affected employees. For families in Bergen County, that means uprooting a household for Texas or risking no job at all.
Why Texas wins
Samsung is moving its leadership closer to where it already builds. The company has run a semiconductor plant near Austin since 1996 and is finishing an advanced chip factory in nearby Taylor, a project that has grown to roughly $37 billion and is due to start production by the end of 2026. Last summer, Samsung signed a $16.5 billion deal with Tesla to make automotive chips at the Taylor plant. Its Plano campus already houses the company’s mobile and network business. Low taxes are the other half of the draw.
A pattern New Jersey can’t shake
Samsung is not the first to go. Earlier this year, ExxonMobil completed its own move to Texas, ending a presence in New Jersey that ran more than 140 years. State Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification filings show more than 7,600 job cuts announced in New Jersey this year, with Verizon, Merck, Johnson & Johnson, and Prudential Financial among the names trimming staff.
The short-term story is 1,000 jobs and a brand-new office about to sit empty. The longer story is whether New Jersey can keep the companies that built it while charging the highest corporate tax in America. Until that number changes, Trenton will keep hearing the same question every time a marquee employer packs up: how many more have to leave first.
JBizNews Desk | New York
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