Taiwan’s NT$3 trillion (US$107.9 billion) semiconductor industry has been aggressively recruiting talent this year, with its demand for manpower in the second quarter rising more than 44 percent from a year earlier, according to online job bank 104.
In its white paper on the semiconductor industry’s workforce, the job bank said Taiwan-based semiconductor companies averaged 27,701 job openings per month in the April-June period, the most in six and a half years.
That was an increase of 44.4 percent compared to the second quarter of 2020 and was the fourth consecutive quarter in which the figure rose.
The job bank said that while the global economy has been hurt by COVID-19, the semiconductor industry has benefited from strong demand for emerging technologies, such as artificial intelligence, 5G applications and the Internet of Things, and continued to grow.
The booming stay-at-home economy, including the rising popularity of online learning and remote work, have also boosted demand for semiconductors, driving the need for more manpower, the job bank said.
Within the semiconductor industry, the IC manufacturing sector saw the monthly average of its job openings in the second quarter grow 55.3 percent from a year earlier, compared to 51.2 percent for the IC packaging and testing sector and 40.8 percent for the IC design sector, the job bank said.
The job bank said IC engineers accounted for about 55 percent of the job openings in the semiconductor industry advertised per month on average.
Despite the growing demand, the job bank said, the average monthly wage in the semiconductor industry fell NT$195 (US$7.01) or 0.4 percent from a year earlier to NT$52,483 in the second quarter, the second highest, trailing the computer/consumer electronics industry’s NT$54,640.
The IC design segment offered an average monthly wage of NT$67,834, compared with NT$56,190 in the IC manufacturing segment, and NT$47,014 in the IC packaging and testing segment.
The average pay, including bonuses, in the local semiconductor industry was NT$1.7 million, lower than the NT$2 million to NT$3.5 million seen in the United States, Singapore and Japan, the job bank said.
Source: Taiwan’s semiconductor industry hungry for workers: job bank