A feud is heating up between Arizona workers and the world’s leading chipmaker after the company claimed the US doesn’t have the skills to build its new factory::TSMC wants to bring in foreign reinforcements to get its Arizona factory running because it claims there aren’t enough qualified local workers.
I worked for a Fortune 100 tech company that claimed they couldn’t get enough qualified workers to fill open jobs. It was utter bullshit.
The workers they brought in from out of the country were typically right out of school or with a very short work history that needed a lot of training, not the highly skilled workers they claimed they needed.
The foreign workers were cheap and routinely worked 100 hour weeks because they had no family or social life in the U.S. American workers with families and lives outside of work could not and would not work those kind of hours consistently. The company then would peer rank employees and (surprise!) the foreign workers working 100 hour weeks would perform more tasks than those working 60 hour weeks.
U.S. citizens would routinely be denied raises and ultimately forced out of their jobs because of this practice. What companies want and foreign workers provide is a cheap workforce that will work 100 hour weeks and can’t readily switch jobs. Only a government that represents corporations instead of people would facilitate this kind of employee abuse.
jet@hackertalks.com 1 year ago
They never finished the sentence in the news articles.
Business unable to find the labor it needs! Is usually where they stop they leave out the “at the price they want”. From the sentence.
It really should say business unable to find the labor it needs at the price it wants
Journalists really shouldn’t let businesses get away with not saying the quiet part out loud.
eatstorming@lemmy.world 1 year ago
It’s not just the price, it’s the whole package. The only place I’ve seen it being lightly talked about was on the Aug 11th’s WAN Show.
TSMC is a Taiwanese company, therefore they expect workers to follow the Asian/Chinese work culture. Meaning basically living (usually literally) in the company and very rarely going home for a quick visit. None of this western “work/life balance” nonsense, none of the unionization stuff. Oh you’re not happy with something? Do not even dare speaking up, much less grouping up to discuss or protest. Just suck it up and deal with it.
The price is important, don’t get me wrong, but Chinese companies do not want people who won’t take any and everything their bosses say without even a slight hint of question.
lickmysword@sh.itjust.works 1 year ago
All of which US companies would love to push onto their employees and work place.
Puzzle_Sluts_4Ever@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Most of that is conflation of Taiwan with China (and let’s not do that) as well as mixing up TSMC with a random Shenzhen factory. Taiwan is definitely fucked, but it is more “America fucked” than “996 fucked”, as it were.
And it is important to understand that TSMC are basically the best of the best in semiconductors. That is skilled labor. I wouldn’t want to work there but if I had to pick a semiconductor factory to work in…
No, the reason that the vast majority of “popular science” tech youtubers have not covered this too much is that it is really a mixture of
So 1 and 2… should be valid but This Is America. But 3 is the real issue. Because we have people who are insisting on getting full salaries while more or less needing to be trained (often for a few years) on the job to be qualified. Versus flying out the people who DO know their shit. Like, we all like to complain that outsourcing usually makes a larger support burden on the parent company. And… yeah.
So most tech youtubers aren’t touching this with a ten foot pole. And LTT have a long history of spewing complete bullshit. Either people worship Linus for “not being afraid to cover a topic” or get angry and they get publicity for “another hot take”.
And basically every other tech youtuber just says “I am not at all qualified to talk about this subject”
5BC2E7@lemmy.world 1 year ago
I agree that your point is usually true. But I am not sure that is the case here. In prior news they alleged that they developed the knowledge as they learned from experience from issues with past fabs. If there are no fabs in the continent anywhere close to what they want to build it’s possible that there aren’t enough workers with all the skillsets they are looking for.
On the other hand they are known to take advantage of the fact that their workers are so specialized that it’s difficult to find alternative job offers so they don’t pay well. They will definitely run into the scenario you described when they look for fab operation staff. At least this is known so many people avoid this field entirely.
jet@hackertalks.com 1 year ago
The advice in business is have more than one customer, cuz if you have a single customer they’ll take advantage of you. The same is true for employers. Your skills need to be marketable to a large field even if it’s a critical skill if it’s a small field you’ll be taken advantage of.
ChicoSuave@lemmy.world 1 year ago
A world leading bleeding edge chip maker is looking at building in the desert and claims there’s not enough resources to do it. Sounds like Arizona doesn’t have enough chip knowledge, which is believable because there are no other chip or silicon manufacturing in the state.
What is Arizona proposing as a solution? Because TSMC is already saying they have an answer to the “not enough talent” problem and are paying god knows what to fly some of the best educated architects in the world over and house them in a place that no one wants to be.
It sounds like you don’t understand the problem.
reallynotnick@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Intel has multiple fabs in Arizona and is building 20A fabs there.
…wikipedia.org/…/List_of_Intel_manufacturing_site…
It sounds like you don’t understand the problem.
Stubborn9867@lemmy.jnks.xyz 1 year ago
No other chip production in the state?
Intel has several fabs in Chandler, AZ. They have down to 10 nm there, with 5nm being their best. So there definitely is a chunk of knowledge in the state.
…wikipedia.org/…/List_of_Intel_manufacturing_site…
pixelfelon@discuss.tchncs.de 1 year ago
It is very inaccurate to say there is no other chip or silicon manufacturing in the state. There is a ton in Phoenix - Microchip has multiple fabs and is headquartered in Scottsdale, there’s also NXP, ON Semi, Intel, probably more that I don’t know about. It’s not the exact same technology that TSMC is building (AFAIK), but there is definitely a strong semiconductor industry in Arizona.
jet@hackertalks.com 1 year ago
Fair, agreed, I dont understand the problem.
dhorse@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Dude you are so wrong. Intel has MASSIVE fabs there and are building an even larger one on Chandler, Motorola has built chips in AZ at many different locations for 30+ years, Honeywell, Nokia, etc. ALL have plants there. It is colloquially known as the Silicon Desert because of this.
quicksand@lemm.ee 1 year ago
The highest volume Intel fab in the world is in Arizona, about an hour from the TSMC site. TSMC has been trying to poach people from Intel by offering them more money. However many people are rejecting their offer, despite the pay raise, due to the toxic work culture at TSMC and possibly a longer commute.
p03locke@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 year ago
It’s Business Inside-Her. What do you expect?
jet@hackertalks.com 1 year ago
Are you using voice to text typing too? That’s a bone apple tea I have seen before. Business insider does not give the most granular journalism. Agreed
NecessaryWeevil@feddit.nl 1 year ago
It also would have been perfectly fine to name the company in the headline. There is plenty of room for it. But that’s Business Insider for you.