https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2023/07/tsmc-delays-us-chip-fab-opening-says-us-talent-is-insufficient/?comments=1&comments-page=1
Arizona chip factory won't be operational until 2025, TSMC said.
As usual, it's not a shortage of talent, it's a shortage of talent willing to be exploited.
The article explicitly explains that they "needed" to hire 25 foreign workers to deal with the shortage... after they made 50 local workers quit by cutting pay.
So just the usual importing cheap labor. Fuck corporations and fuck the people who make excuses for their shitty practices
US talent is insufficiently motivated to work in Arizona for peanuts. Particularly not when there are plenty of other, better paying tech companies in the state.
Make sure to read the article. It's about building the plant, not staffing it after. Apparently skilled construction workers for these types of plants are only where these plants are located currently (Taiwan for example). Not too surprising there are a limited number of skilled workers like this and they live where the work is.
It's not particularly clear.
They mention multiple times the construction aspect of it, but you have to understand that these are not your typical factories. The amount of planning and design and engineering involved is incredible and it needs to get done before the physical building is erected. It's still part of the "construction" process but it's not pouring concrete or welding steel I beams. This is work that would be done by engineers and technicians, not construction workers.
Still, I can definitely see there being a hard time finding qualified workers because that is such a niche industry, but at the same time the company is doing itself absolutely no favors what with how it's CEO has acted and said. In the end, I think at least some of this is just posturing because they probably want to ship in their Taiwanese workforce at much lower rates than Americans.
But I know for a fact it is getting tough finding technical people with any experience these days. We are in a similarish situation and we are having a heck of a time finding workers. And I know people won't believe it, but it's always the pay level.
I miswrote that last sentence. I know people won't believe it, but it ISN'T about the pay. I KNOW we pay our people well. You just can't find qualified employees. There is zero work ethic in a group of people out there. Showing up on time and actually showing up at all? That's a foreign concept to some people. Basic skills - communicating with people, having basic understanding of how things are assembled or understanding how tools work.
This is especially bad when you can hire people in other countries to do the same work, pay them a fraction of US workers and you'll get far better production out of them with far less headaches. It's like WTF? We're trying to reshore some production and in essence people are saying "nah, we don't want it". These same people would be the first to complain when they hear some product is made overseas.
Those people you’re talking about tend to be the loudest too in my experience.
It sounds like there’s something people just can’t get past to do the job you’re offering. My first response when someone says “no one wants to work!” is to finish that with “for what you want to pay them” but you say the wage is good. Maybe it’s your cologne? Or your chairs are uncomfortable?
IDK your personal experience, but it's almost always the pay. Possibly you're just matching the pay other companies offer, and the industry doesn't pay much in the U.S. comparable to trades that require equal training, so there aren't many workers that go into that trade. Or, the labor market is extremely tight for that trade.
I was in a similar circumstance, and was able to find quality candidates by raising what we were offering considerably (+30-50% above regional average, according to sites like glassdoor). We were able to attract very good employees away from their previous employers this way. But, these were more "professional" jobs, and sounds like you're looking for "lower-skilled" technicians, which may have different subtleties. Another option is apprenticeship-like arrangements (on-the-job training + paying for technical school), depending on the industry/trade.
If people don't care to have work ethic, show up on time, etc, it's usually because they feel like they're being shafted, and have horrible, non-inspiring management, so they feel they owe the company nothing. If people feel like they're working for a company, instead of with a company that's helping them "self-actualize" or whatever, you get the "companies pay just enough so their workers don't quit, employees work just hard enough to not get fired," attitude.
You can pay these people 3x what the position is worth and you still won't get someone that actually shows up and has some of the basic skills needed. There's always some excuse or increasingly these days, it's almost always some scheme to get free money. And the word "scheme" perfectly fits the situation here what either all the connotation that word comes with.
Literally watched a YT video the other day of some guy traveling around Appalachia and visiting coal country and his experience interviewing some of the people there was eye opening and very similar to what we were seeing with a whole generation devoid of a work ethic and trying ways to exploit the system for freebies. Doesn't matter what your position is paying, free money will always win.
LOL. I watched that too yesterday. I don't think the people he talked to were the most reliable narrators though. People have been claiming everyone else doesn't want to work since the beginning of time :) Some of the people they were complaining about "collecting checks" sounded like they actually were disabled (seizures, anxiety, etc). Regardless, if you feel your choices in life are to work at a gas station for $7/hr and still need government assistance just to survive, or just collect a check, you're going to choose the check. These people are broken by poverty, and believe they have no hope to lead successful, rewarding lives (which may or may not be true).
I have family that lived in some of those exact same towns. Sadly, most died very young (in their 20s) ) due to poverty/drugs/shit-life-syndrome.
I’ve had the opposite experience. We pay way beyond the highest end in our industry, gobs of extra bonuses, full benefits, profit sharing, transparent salaries, nearly unlimited vacation, 4 day work weeks, work from home with all their tech provided, and we still struggle to get people to just do the work.
We’ve tried folks that are local and folks that are all over the country and it’s basically the same issues. You get really talented people initially but some folks you still have to drag kicking and screaming just to do the work consistently. It’s not even just the young folks.
I explicitly pay high because I don’t want to micro manage people to just do the work. I don’t want money to be the primary motivator. Sure we have bonuses but everyone gets them if we meet the goals. It’s a team effort.
I don’t take benefits that I don’t also give my team. It feels like we get one decent worker out of every 10 that make it through the 90 day probationary period without a lot of coaching on time management. The work isn’t even difficult - it’s just work that is very consistent and detail oriented. Even when you outline the success up front for them, you can watch it start to slip in the folks that aren’t going to make it after 4-6 weeks. We have touch points every two weeks during the probationary period and even when you try and steer the ship back on track they falter if you don’t stay on top them.
It’s like a lot of people just aren’t adapted or disciplined to work from home where there isn’t militant structure, especially when we have SO much flexibility. They say they want all the freedom and benefits we offer but won’t make whatever changes they need to sustain it.
Like literally have had people break down at their 90 days crying because they SAY they want everything we offer, best job they’ve ever had, blah blah blah — but won’t just allocate the goddamned time to their daily hours and do the work. Some don’t even know why they don’t do it.
We had one guy who said it was like winning the mega millions but it was like the situation where the person doesn’t know how to manage the money and they spend their entire fortune in less than a year and are broke and worse off afterwards.
The folks who are successful at the job most have been with us for many years. A few have even left and come back.
I can see why some companies want people to work in an office, it would probably make the company much more successful and profitable. I personally hate that though. I’d rather not have a company that have to have a 9-5 office. I want to have the freedom and work flexibility to enjoy work life balance — and I want all of this for the team too. Some people just don’t want it enough for themselves I guess even when you hand it to them on a silver platter.
We just keep sifting to find the gems.
It’s maddening.
Hmm. I can see that if meetings only take place every 2 weeks. We have daily meetings (agile), and pretty granular task/issue tracking, which are even more important for remote workers, IMO.
They've been trying to poach people from Intel and it isn't working. Their reputation precedes themselves.
Edit: also I think they did not anticipate how much US safety standards in construction would slow them down
Does anyone else look at "TSMC" and subconsciously think of "Transmeta Crusoe"? I need to keep reminding my brain that's not what TSMC stands for lol.
You'd be surprised at how many fabs there are in the US.
And so on. The US has a lot of fabs. For best countries in the world to build a new fab, the US would rank somewhere between first and third place — and I think there's a strong argument for the answer being "first place." Unlike Taiwan and South Korea, US fab jobs and experience are not almost entirely dominated by one or two companies. The US isn't located in one of the most geopolitically risky parts of the developed world. The US has a huge population and plenty of money to put into fab expansion.
The only issues here are (a) the US has gotten worse and worse at large scale construction projects, and (b) TSMC wants to pay workers like shit and treat them even worse, which doesn't fly for technically skilled US workers. You can treat US technical workers workers poorly, but not as poorly as in much of Asia, and you definitely cannot do it without paying them very well.
Almost all RAM comes from #1: Samsung (aka: Korea) and #2: Crucial/Micron (aka: USA).
TSMC has strong logic chips, but it takes more than just logic to make a computer. USA is no slouch either on Logic (Intel is down the street, also in Arizona).
Aside from Intel / Arizona... TI (from Texas) is a giant in automotive microcontrollers, power-transistors and the like. If you're getting electricity of any kind (power-supplies, electric vehicles, switching terminals of electric lines), its probably going through a TI transistor with power-controllers / TI-microcontrollers in between.
USA absolutely has tons of chip talent. TSMC may be the top, but lets not pretend that USA is some kind of technological slouch. Arizona has plenty of talent, there's plenty of talent in New York (Buffalo / GloFo) and Texas (TI) as well in this field. Lets not be so self-deprecating here...
Um, hard disagree. It makes a lot of sense if we don’t want to entirely be dependent on China for silicon production. Gets a little fuzzy because this is a foreign company, but the plant is still on US soil. We need to make semi-conductors in the US or we can never maintain independence from China. Our dependency on China still may be too far gone, but this is at least an attempt to remain independent from arguably our largest world adversary. Remember how the world’s hardware supply chain slowed to a molasses pace because of COVID? That’s why it’s smart to build in the US.