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AT A TIME when the US is looking to attract more skilled workers to semiconductor manufacturing, many current employees are rethinking whether they want to stick around, according to a McKinsey & Co report that underscores the chip industry’s labour challenges.
More than half of semiconductor and electronics employees said in 2023 that they are at least somewhat likely to leave their current jobs in the next three to six months, according to the report. That’s up from around two-fifths of workers in 2021. The most commonly cited reason was a lack of career development, followed by limited workplace flexibility.
“We’re going into a boom in terms of demand,” said Wade Toller, a senior adviser at McKinsey who spent two decades at Intel. “About a third of the population in the semi industry is over the age of 55. You’re starting to see signals that some of that population is becoming less satisfied.”
I suppose no great loss for a few folks on here with how they judge the US worker in general!
Maybe some business going to start to show their staff some respect and treat them as part of the team and not just work horses to be whipped until they keel over!
I could only hope this is true, and that this is true it was a worldwide issue. The larger the labor shortfalls get that would hopefully catalyze a change in how the semiconductor manufactures source their talent to be more inline with the rest of the chemical industry. And while it wouldn't effect me I wouldn't complain if it also led to increased technician empowerment. They are crazy smart and from my experience they are underutilized. You give them the right training and more operational freedom/independence and I think even the skeptics would be impressed.
This is not my experience here in Silicon Valley. We are all about stock and options. If you have a big job market like we do here the competition to hire people is fierce which means good wages, raises, and career growth, absolutely.
This is not my experience here in Silicon Valley. We are all abut stock and options. If you have a big job market like we do here the competition to hire people is fierce which means good wages, raises, and career growth.
To certain degree the free market mechanism will help to resolve most of the labor shortage issues, for example:
1. Companies will raise the level of compensation to attract and retain talents.
2. Move people or hire people from other countries.
3. Change and improve the manufacturing process to produce more and/or use less people.
4. Move fabs to or start new fabs at other suitable places or in other countries.
5. More automation and AI assisted operations and manufacturing.
Unfortunately, union leaders/members, politicians, and a big portion of employees will put most attention on raising the compensation as the solution. Often it's too late to alter the decline by the time they realize the higher salary alone is not enough.
I left because the constant crunch time and lack of work-life balance wore me down. Pay was okay, but burnout hit hard, and management didn't seem to really care.
I left because the constant crunch time and lack of work-life balance wore me down. Pay was okay, but burnout hit hard, and management didn't seem to really care.
It really depends how much the compensation is. There was one CNCB report couple years ago. Wall Street firms reduce weekly work hours to 100? hours/week and only provide one weekend every month. Has someone here worked with Stock Exchanges? Can you imagine the Stock Markets can not open, it happened, because of your mistakes and the company lost several hundred millions because of weekend test not normalized? And your pager or phone went off 3-4 AM quite often, then you need to take 05:50 AM bus to beat the Manhattan traffic to get into office by 7:00AM.
Compared with Wall Street, Silicon Valley is just low-stress. Do not forget Silicon Valley makes products for Wall Street.
This is not my experience here in Silicon Valley. We are all about stock and options. If you have a big job market like we do here the competition to hire people is fierce which means good wages, raises, and career growth, absolutely.
These are the real problems of US semiconductor manufacturing or any manufacturing industries. Silicon Valley wants "stocks and options" which are only feasible from start-up companies. Why US so-called tech companies only build "paper machines" because only smart people, pen and paper is needed, compared with hundred of billions dollars investment/cost, and success is NOT warranted? Therefore who are really stupid, especially from billionaire hedge fund managers and real-estate developers POV? TSMC or Silicon Valley?
It really depends how much the compensation is. There was one CNCB report couple years ago. Wall Street firms reduce weekly work hours to 100? hours/week and only provide one weekend every month. Has someone here worked with Stock Exchanges? Can you imagine the Stock Markets can not open, it happened, because of your mistakes and the company lost several hundred millions because of weekend test not normalized? And your pager or phone went off 3-4 AM quite often, then you need to take 05:50 AM bus to beat the Manhattan traffic to get into office by 7:00AM.
You really should get your facts straight before you post.
The stories about investment banks expecting employees to work 100+ hours per week relates to closing merger and acquisition deals, where the "prize" for the banks are the fees they get from managing the transactions. This isn't about keeping the stock exchanges open.
Sometimes true, often not. I never had a job in the computing field where "work-life balance" was a consideration. Mostly I was doing something seven days a week, if I was on a hot project, which was often.
These are the real problems of US semiconductor manufacturing or any manufacturing industries. Silicon Valley wants "stocks and options" which are only feasible from start-up companies. Why US so-called tech companies only build "paper machines" because only smart people, pen and paper is needed, compared with hundred of billions dollars investment/cost, and success is NOT warranted? Therefore who are really stupid, especially from billionaire hedge fund managers and real-estate developers POV? TSMC or Silicon Valley?
Such nonsense. Many large US companies in many industries use stock options, stock grants (RSUs), and stock purchase plans to augment cash compensation. Not just start-ups.
The real problems of US manufacturing companies are over-regulation (especially during construction permitting phases), high construction costs compared to low cost geos, much higher labor costs than low-cost geos, and socialistic labor unions which are protected by federal and (some) state laws.
Anyone know if this claim from the McKinsey report is correct ?
“About a third of the population in the semi industry is over the age of 55. You’re starting to see signals that some of that population is becoming less satisfied.”
That does seem very high. May be correct, but doesn't feel like that's a great sign for the US industry if true.
