US-Chipfabriken leiden unter einem massiven Arbeitskräftemangel von 157.000, nur 3 % der US-Ingenieurabsolventen beginnen mit der Chipherstellung – trotz sechsstelliger Gehälter brauchen US-Chiphersteller dringend Ingenieure und Techniker

Us engineers not taking jobs in volitile field where they could be laid off on a moments notice, for the same pay they make elsewhere in a secure job. 

Consider offering more money. 

If only someone had passed a chip act. And if only someone else hadn’t killed it.

I don’t get it, don’t computer engineers have a higher unemployment rate than other engineering fields? I remember stories from last year about how it was as high as some humanities majors that people are always cautioned against.

TSMC has terrible work culture. I’ve heard a lot of horror stories in their Pheonix labs.

Until it is financially mkre appealing to create jobs in the US that would otherwise be created offshore this wont change for any industry. Maximizing profits for shareholder returns at all cost is not going away now…so whatever realizes that, this will be the direction companies take.

„Six figures“ can mean $100k and for a highly skilled engineering job that’s somewhere between insulting and unlivable depending on where the job is located.

Distribute the engineering. I’d love to work in chip fabrication but don’t want to move from my Midwest metro area.

Doubt. I get instant rejections.

Chipmakers need labor more than anything. No engineer wants to live on an assembly line for 14 hours a day with Chinese level benefits and salary structures.

six figures and still can’t fill the seats, tells you everything about how many people would rather do literally anything else with an engineering degree

Chip manufacturing is a very unique and rather niche field in the grand scheme of engineering. The issue isn’t that people don’t want these jobs or there is raw shortage of “engineers”, or that they pay too little. The issue is these companies want people with 5+ years of direct industry experience, working in the exact same role they are hiring for.

I’ve seen it time and time again. Engineering managers fight to get a req opened and don’t want to squander it by hiring the guy who’s not the absolute best possible fit for the role. It’s like the current state of online dating, there’s always that hypothetical perfect candidate out there waiting.

You’d think with the advances of AI, having really niche knowledge bases and experience would be less detrimental than having the core engineering principles, product dev framework, DFM understanding etc. but unfortunately US companies are increasingly more and more shortsighted, they think in terms of quarters only.

3% of engineering grads enter the chip fab workforce isn’t really enough information. What % of engineering jobs does chip fabrication offer in the market? If it’s less than 3%, they’re attracting more than their share of engineers. This feels like propaganda to cover for mismanagement of their workforce.

Whatever the case, if you aren’t able to hire people, pay more and offer stability. Engineers exist, but companies will always complain that they can’t take advantage of them like they want to.

Offshoring American technology manufacturing was a huge mistake. So many jobs lost — bringing it back is going to take generations.

I saw it back in the 90s at my first job working in industrial automation — I’d walk into absolutely enormous manufacturing facilities and the brains of the place would be consolidated to a handful of desks in a corner of the building. We’d pour over documentation written by physicists in the 50s and I’d just think about the terrible brain drain this place had suffered.

Meanwhile out on the manufacturing floor, more of the equipment was getting shipped to Mexico every day. People losing jobs there left and right.

I worked for a bunch of big electronics manufacturers all asking us to make simpler equipment since it was all going to China and Mexico putting American workers out of work. It never made sense to me — where did the government allowing this to happen think these folks (and the folks that would replace them when they retired) were going to find jobs since this was happening in parallel all over the place?

Stop building the fabs in places I don’t want to live.

This is my biggest issue with this industry when they complain about shortages. Intel has their Hillsboro R&D center in Portland, a cool spot and that’s about it.

All the HVMs though: Nowhere, Texas, Phoenix, somewhere in the plains. Yes I understand land is cheap there. But if you want a bunch of highly educated people with specialized fab knowledge, you gotta build in a place those people will go. I chose biotech in San Diego over Fabs in Phoenix and im not sure there’s an amount of money that would get me to move.

Six figure is such a boomer term

Which portion of six figures ? 100k or 900k?

Six figures isn’t the 100k range it used to be.

You have firms offering $400k base and 250k in stock as a minimum for specific technical talent.

My husband and I both worked in semi. It used to be that the stock options and benefits outweighed the high-pressure, long hours and layoff risk. That’s gone. Lots of other fields have the same or better compensation without driving the workforce into the ground.

Saying „six-figure salary“ today for a high-end engineer is like saying „five-figure salary“ back in the 1980s… it could be almost nothing compared to all the other work you’re qualified for, or it could be decent pay.

„Six-figure salary“ is likely $100k, and not $180k+ like it implies… which is GREAT for most people, unless you’re qualified to be a chipmaking engineering grad where all the other jobs are well into the six figures already, and this just seems like a bad idea that will likely fire you in a year anyway because that’s the culture.

“Six-figure salaries” aka “the standard rate for engineers”.

They don’t market this industry as good to students