Positive Semiconductor Job Outlook in 2014!

Based on local traffic patterns and my experience in Silicon Valley over the last 30 years we are looking at a much higher employment rate inside the fabless semiconductor ecosystem, absolutely. Jobs are being filled more so than I have seen in the past ten years. The challenge of course is finding the right people for the right job and properly motivating them. This is critical if we want to thrive and innovate in the coming years. While LinkedIn is currently the defacto employment tool, in my mind there has got to be a better way to fill those jobs with qualified people.

“The December jobs report was an ugly mix of slowing employment growth and disappointing labor supply.” J.P. Morgan economist Michael Feroli.

Unfortunately the Bureau of Labor Statistics December jobs report does not agree with my assessment. For all of 2013, the economy added 2.2 million jobs which was on par with 2012’s gains but in December payrolls only grew by 74,000, the lowest total since January 2011. Meanwhile, the unemployment rate fell to 6.7% in December but the drop came mainly from people leaving the labor force. Hopefully this is a fluke due to the freezing weather and overly conservative holiday spending. The United States lost 8.7 million jobs in the aftermath of the 2007 financial crisis. As of January 1[SUP]st[/SUP] 2014 we have gained about 7.5 million of those jobs back.

“The Conference Board’s Leading Economic Indicators and the results from the latest survey of purchasing managers are two economic readings that suggest employment gains will rebound in the New Year.” Kathy Bostjancic, director of macroeconomic analysis.

Moving forward SemiWiki will focus efforts on a Jobs Forum in hopes of making a difference with the employment issues the fabless semiconductor ecosystem is currently facing. Just a quick survey of our 40+ subscribing companies revealed hundreds of jobs available and hundreds more opening up in the coming months. The challenge is attracting new qualified candidates and to do that we must get better at telling our story.

Joining SemiWiki in this effort is Rich Goldstein, a good friend and experienced employment professional. Recently Rich has been a contract Personnel Director of an Intellectual Property startup (Kilopass Technology), a sourcer for firmware engineers (PMC Sierra), as well as Software Developers (Xilinx), corporate EDA recruiter (Magma Design Automation), and for the better part of 2013 Rich was with AMD.

Rich and I will be writing in more detail about employment opportunities within the fabless semiconductor ecosystem in hopes of driving qualified traffic to targeted career website pages. Your feedback would be greatly appreciated as this project evolves over the next few months. Crowdsourcing wins every time, absolutely.

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