Semiconductor Manufacturers in Taiwan Are Competing for Skilled Workers Before They Can Graduate

In the past, gaming developers would go to college and graduate with degrees in computer science before they were hired. However, as game development has become more of a business rather than an art form, many young people are finding that university doesn’t offer what industry does. As a result, Taiwan is recruiting talent from other industries like semiconductor manufactureres to help develop games for the future

The “taiwan semiconductor” is a story about how Taiwan’s semiconductor manufacturers are competing for skilled workers before they can graduate.

TSMC is the source of this image.

Taiwanese semiconductor companies are trying to find qualified personnel. Because of the present worldwide chip shortage, corporations are employing kids before they have even completed their first year of college. As corporations from all around the globe compete to recruit a record number of staff in amounts never seen previously in the sector, some are dubbing this a chip talent war.

Ken Wu, a National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University student, has been getting job offers for the last two years. This has been going on while he has been working on his PhD. He indicated that he would be unable to accept any full-time employment offers.

“However, I was continually bombarded with emails and phone calls from HR and even some tech executives asking if I wanted to arrange an interview with them to learn more about their firm and departments,” Wu said.

Wu has subsequently taken a position as a senior engineer at Macronix. Macronix is a memory supplier to Apple, BMW, and Nintendo. As the island seeks to fulfill global needs, such tales are becoming increasingly prevalent. In Taiwan, the business has recruited over 65,000 people since 2019. In 2022, TSMC and MediaTek have said that they want to recruit at least 10,000 people.

“The future expansion of the semiconductor sector will be hampered by a scarcity of high-end chip expertise,” stated Tsai Ming-kai (Chairman of MediaTek).

Nikkei Asia has collated information on current job vacancies from corporate comments, interviews, job listings, employment recruiting sites, and other sources. According to that information, there are now over 2,000 job vacancies at a variety of firms. The list reads like a who’s who of semiconductor companies.

AMD
Intel
Micron
Novatek
NVIDIA
Electronics by Phison
Qualcomm
Realtek

The continuous scarcity, according to Martin Wong (President of Compal Electronics, a laptop maker), has aggravated smaller firms’ attempts to recruit.

“As you can see… “MediaTek and TSMC are looking for talent all over the place, and we want to employ at least 1,000 people this year,” Martin Wong said. “If we don’t step up our game, how will we be able to employ enough people?” We also travel to schools to advertise our business in the hopes that these young people would learn about Compal before they graduate, increasing our chances of luring them away from other firms.”

Staffing shortages in Taiwan are harming not just semiconductor manufacturers, but also enterprises that provide them with equipment. ASML is one such business that has found itself vying for personnel with its own customers. ASML’s President and CEO, Peter Wennink, spoke about how they have to fight for talent on numerous levels.

“Everyone is expanding at a breakneck pace. “We compete with TSMC in Taiwan,” Wennink stated. “We compete with Samsung and SK Hynix in Korea. We compete with Intel and Micron in the United States, as well as Apple and Qualcomm.”

According to a professor at a local institution, the majority of his students have found work during their first year of graduate school. Salary increases are also taking place across many industries to help the semiconductor business, according to a consultancy firm. The current monthly minimum wage in Taiwan is roughly $906, but semiconductor employees may start with a pay that is almost twice that. There are people who may earn up to three times the minimum salary, without adding bonuses and other incentives.

Unfortunately, between 2011 and 2019, Taiwan had a steep drop of over 25,000 STEM graduates. This tendency, which had prompted the pandemic’s requirements, has only hampered the industry’s attempts to satisfy worldwide demands, when combined with other circumstances. Multiple assertions have been made, ranging from AMD CEO Dr. Lisa Su to an analysis company, suggesting the chip crisis might be over by 2022–2023. Those rosy outlooks, on the other hand, may not have taken into account the possibility of personnel shortages for semiconductor makers in Taiwan, which might exacerbate the situation.

Nikkei Asia is the source of this information (via PC Gamer)