text︱Guo Ziwen
Figure︱ Network
National level attaches importance to the semiconductor industry and the competition for market leadership by semiconductor companies have made the global semiconductor market more fierce. In recent years, countries and regions have introduced relevant policies to increase support for their chip industry, such as the United States promulgation of the US competition bill, South Korea announced the K semiconductor strategy, EU passed the European chip bill, etc.
In addition, the global semiconductor industry is unbalanced, coupled with the continued rise in downstream market demand, which has prompted the upstream and downstream semiconductor industry to vigorously expand production capacity and increase R&D investment. As the semiconductor market continues to expand, the talent gap is getting bigger and bigger. According to the Economic Reference News, data from Liepin Big Data Research Institute shows that the TSI (Talent Shortage Index) in the semiconductor industry is 1.91, reaching its peak in the past two years. The emergence of semiconductor talent shortage has also caused chaos in the global talent market, with chip talent crash courses emerging one after another, and high-paying poaching among enterprises is becoming increasingly fierce.
Recently, the Investigation Bureau of the Ministry of Justice of Taiwan Province, China issued an announcement to launch a second round of comprehensive investigation into suspected illegal poaching of scientific and technological talents by mainland Chinese companies. In semiconductor high-tech centers such as Taipei, New Taipei , Taoyuan and Hsinchu , the Bureau of Investigation searched a total of 20 places, inquired and investigated nearly 70 people, and simultaneously searched 10 mainland enterprises or R&D bases that illegally operated in Taiwan.
As early as March, the Taiwan Provincial Bureau of Investigation launched the first round of synchronous searches of mainland enterprises illegally engaged in business or poaching talents in Taiwan, and a total of 11 illegal domestic enterprises were investigated and dealt with. Subsequently, the Taiwan Provincial Legislative Yuan passed the amendment to the "Regulations on Relations between the People's Relations between Taiwan and the Mainland" on May 20 to strengthen restrictions on mainland enterprises.
cannot be ignored. Regarding the mainland's snatching talent resources in Taiwan, Taiwan has been panicked about the loss of talent and technological competitiveness. At the same time, we can also see the depth of talent shortage in the semiconductor industry. Data from 104 Human Resources Bank of Taiwan's talent service agency in Taiwan shows that the talent gap in the semiconductor industry hit a seven-year high in the fourth quarter of 2021, with an average of 34,000 people per month. In addition, job seekers entering the semiconductor industry can be divided into 3.7 jobs on average, and the "supply ratio" is much higher than the overall talent recruitment market.
In August last year, 104 Human Resources Bank pointed out in the "Semiconductor Human Resources White Paper" that since the second quarter of 2020, semiconductor job opportunities in Taiwan, China have risen for the fourth consecutive quarter, with an average monthly talent gap of 27,000, an annual increase of 44.4%.
Source: 104 Human Resources Bank
From the data, we can see that the talent gap in the semiconductor industry in Taiwan is expanding rapidly. On the one hand, due to the trend of low birth rate in Taiwan, the number of science and engineering graduates has decreased significantly. According to , news reports, data from the Ministry of Education showed that in 2019, science and engineering graduates fell below double digits, about 92,000, and 116,000 in 2011.
On the other hand, according to 104 Human Resources Bank data, the average monthly salary of the semiconductor industry in Taiwan in 2021 is about NT$52,288 (approximately RMB 12,180), which is a downward trend compared with 2020. In the "2022 Talent Trend Report", Hudson pointed out that the chip industry's job-changing salary increase of will exceed 50% this year. Compared with the global semiconductor salary level, European and American companies' salaries are obviously more attractive to talents. In addition, they can get a significant salary increase by changing jobs, and outstanding talents in Taiwan continue to flow out.
Source: Hudson
Therefore, at this level, Taiwan's fear of poaching mainland enterprises seems to be traceable. But in fact, it is common not only in the semiconductor industry, but also in the entire industry to poach people with high salaries. In the early years, in order to improve its chip R&D capabilities, Samsung also went to the United States, Japan and other places to poach people with two to three times the salary. In the 1990s, Samsung took advantage of the Japanese economic crisis to poach more than 70 technical personnel with triple salary.
Intel has also poached technical talents for AMD, , and Apple many times. For example, former AMD chief SoC architect Rohit Verma switched to Intel as the chief product architect of GPU SoC for independent graphics, and former Apple Mac system architecture director Jeff Wilcox switched to Intel as the technical director of the design engineering department.
is not only Samsung and Intel, but also semiconductor companies are not willing to lag behind in the battle to compete for talents. They hire headhunters and increase internal recommendation rewards in an attempt to attract more high-tech talents and strengthen their chip design and R&D capabilities. The research report of the American think tank "Center for Security and Emerging Technology" (CSET) pointed out that for the United States, revitalizing the semiconductor industry requires a large amount of labor and talents, and due to the shortage of talents in the country, it is necessary to attract at least 3,500 high-tech talents. The report also recommends that these talents can poach from major wafer foundry manufacturers such as TSMC and Samsung.
In fact, job change and poaching are not easy to define. This is a two-way choice between enterprises and talents, and it is also an inevitable result of industrial and market development. Reuters published an article saying that it is not illegal for Chinese mainland companies to hire engineers from Taiwan, but Taiwan uses legal restrictions and even prohibits mainland companies from investing in Taiwan. This approach can only delay the outflow of talents to a certain extent, but if it cannot be more attractive in salary and treatment, the outflow of talents is an inevitable trend.
In view of the current global shortage of semiconductor talents, whether for enterprises or countries or regions, instead of blocking the gap in talent loss, it is better to think about how to retain talents and how to cultivate talents. Salary and welfare benefits are the most intuitive talent attraction solutions. Major Korean semiconductor companies are increasing their employees' salaries. For example, SK Hynix rose by 8% last year, and the junior salary increased to 50.4 million won.
In addition, improve the chain of production, education, research and application, and strengthen professional skills education for college students. Generally speaking, current college education focuses more on theory and lacks training in professional skills. From school to enterprises, college students often lack practical skills. Therefore, strengthening the training of college students and optimizing talent reserves is also a breakthrough to fill the talent gap. Samsung and SK Hynix are revising the human resources policy to promote early education and training for undergraduates, and jointly cultivate semiconductor talents with many universities and research institutions; Intel has also announced that it will invest $100 million in educational institutions across the United States to establish a semiconductor talent pipeline and support research programs.
As the core driver of promoting the development of the semiconductor industry, the importance of talents is self-evident. In the next two years, as the new production capacity of wafer foundry in the semiconductor industry gradually develops, it is expected that the shortage of semiconductor manufacturing talents will further increase, and the battle to grab talents will become more and more intense.
