Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday said it is stepping up recruitment this year to cope with rigorous demand, primarily for chips for 5G products and for high-performance computing.
The company, which supplies chips for Apple Inc iPhones, plans to hire 8,000 people this year, TSMC chairman Mark Liu (劉德音) told reporters on the sidelines of a news conference to unveil a revamped semiconductor exhibition at the National Museum of Natural Science in Taichung.
“Our business is exceptionally strong this year. We usually hire about 4,000 new workers a year,” Liu said. “We are scaling up [recruitment] this year.”
Photo: Tsai Shu-yuan, Taipei Times
TSMC last month raised its revenue growth forecast for this year to 20 percent from a year earlier after in April forecasting growth of between 15 percent and 19 percent as 5G and high-performance computing applications spur demand for advanced 5-nanometer and 7-nanometer technology.
The firm last year employed 5,000 people to support growth, bringing its overall headcount to 51,297 as of Dec. 31, a TSMC annual report showed.
TSMC had low turnover last year of 4.9 percent, the report showed.
Liu yesterday dismissed a report last week in the Nikkei Asian Review, which said that more than 100 engineers and experienced managers from TSMC had been poached by Chinese rivals since last year to build their own semiconductor technologies and reduce dependence on foreign supply.
“The report is not true,” Liu said.
The COVID-19 pandemic has prevented people from leaving Taiwan over the past six months, he said.
TSMC yesterday repeated its call for the government to adjust the nation’s higher-education system to cope with rapidly growing demand for semiconductor talent.
Talent demand among local semiconductor firms is outgrowing the number of local university graduates as businesses expand rapidly, Liu said.
MULTIFACETED: A task force has analyzed possible scenarios and created responses to assist domestic industries in dealing with US tariffs, the economics minister said The Executive Yuan is tomorrow to announce countermeasures to US President Donald Trump’s planned reciprocal tariffs, although the details of the plan would not be made public until Monday next week, Minister of Economic Affairs J.W. Kuo (郭智輝) said yesterday. The Cabinet established an economic and trade task force in November last year to deal with US trade and tariff related issues, Kuo told reporters outside the legislature in Taipei. The task force has been analyzing and evaluating all kinds of scenarios to identify suitable responses and determine how best to assist domestic industries in managing the effects of Trump’s tariffs, he
TIGHT-LIPPED: UMC said it had no merger plans at the moment, after Nikkei Asia reported that the firm and GlobalFoundries were considering restarting merger talks United Microelectronics Corp (UMC, 聯電), the world’s No. 4 contract chipmaker, yesterday launched a new US$5 billion 12-inch chip factory in Singapore as part of its latest effort to diversify its manufacturing footprint amid growing geopolitical risks. The new factory, adjacent to UMC’s existing Singapore fab in the Pasir Res Wafer Fab Park, is scheduled to enter volume production next year, utilizing mature 22-nanometer and 28-nanometer process technologies, UMC said in a statement. The company plans to invest US$5 billion during the first phase of the new fab, which would have an installed capacity of 30,000 12-inch wafers per month, it said. The
Taiwan’s official purchasing managers’ index (PMI) last month rose 0.2 percentage points to 54.2, in a second consecutive month of expansion, thanks to front-loading demand intended to avoid potential US tariff hikes, the Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) said yesterday. While short-term demand appeared robust, uncertainties rose due to US President Donald Trump’s unpredictable trade policy, CIER president Lien Hsien-ming (連賢明) told a news conference in Taipei. Taiwan’s economy this year would be characterized by high-level fluctuations and the volatility would be wilder than most expect, Lien said Demand for electronics, particularly semiconductors, continues to benefit from US technology giants’ effort
‘SWASTICAR’: Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s close association with Donald Trump has prompted opponents to brand him a ‘Nazi’ and resulted in a dramatic drop in sales Demonstrators descended on Tesla Inc dealerships across the US, and in Europe and Canada on Saturday to protest company chief Elon Musk, who has amassed extraordinary power as a top adviser to US President Donald Trump. Waving signs with messages such as “Musk is stealing our money” and “Reclaim our country,” the protests largely took place peacefully following fiery episodes of vandalism on Tesla vehicles, dealerships and other facilities in recent weeks that US officials have denounced as terrorism. Hundreds rallied on Saturday outside the Tesla dealership in Manhattan. Some blasted Musk, the world’s richest man, while others demanded the shuttering of his
RSS