Seoul, Jul 2 (IANS): For the first time in seven years, the headcount of Samsung Electronics came down in 2016 mainly due to its restructuring in China, the company data showed on Sunday.

The number of employees of the world's largest smartphone and memory chip manufacturer fell 5.2 per cent to 308,745 in 2016 from 325,677 the previous year, Yonhap news agency reported.

By region, domestic employees dropped 3.8 per cent to 93,204, and those abroad declined 5.8 per cent to 215,541.

As of the end of last year, the percentage of the employees at Samsung's companies abroad dropped 0.4 percent to 69.8 percent.

The number of Samsung employees in China fell 17.5 percent to 37,070 last year from 44,948 the previous year while those in North and South America surged 8.5 per cent to 25,988.

A company official attributed the cut in the number of employees partly to the sale of its printing business to HP.

Corporate restructuring in Samsung's factories in China and other Asian countries also led to the overseas manpower cut, he said.

The ratio of female employees accounted for 44 per cent last year, down two percentage points from a year earlier.

The proportion of female managers and executives, however, rose to 12.7 per cent and 6.3 per cent last year from 12.4 per cent and 4.5 per cent, respectively, from a year earlier.

Samsung Electronics has 2,468 cooperative business partners across the globe as of the end of 2016 while maintaining 238 major production facilities, 53 distribution centres, 34 research and development centres, seven design centres and 73 service centres across the world.