China lacks 200 thousand specialists in the microchip industry

China’s semiconductor industry is short of 200,000 workers this year, according to a joint report by the China Information Industry Development Center and the China Semiconductor Association. And given that the country will soon stop receiving advanced Western microchips and equipment for their production due to sanctions USA, the situation for local producers may be critical. Given the circumstances, the country’s authorities are seeking to urgently eliminate this shortage of qualified personnel, reports Reuters.

To solve the problem, the authorities began to actively invest in university programs. So, based on the data of the ten largest universities in the country, the enrollment of students in specialties related to the development of microchips and software for them has almost doubled from 2018 to 2022 – up to 2.9 thousand people. At the same time, the average salary of novice engineers in the country has doubled over the past five years – from 200 thousand yuan ($ 28.7 thousand) to 400 thousand yuan per year.

At the same time, Reuters interlocutors note that it will take years for the education system to eliminate the shortage of personnel. In addition, now more than 60% of Chinese students in this field do not do internships at enterprises during their studies, and therefore are not ready for work immediately after graduation. This is very different from the situation in Taiwan, where one of the world leaders in the industry, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing, once opened research centers at four universities at once. And in them, students of local universities spend most of their education. In China, only the largest local semiconductor manufacturer Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp, together with the Shenzhen University of Technology, promised to open such a laboratory in 2021.

Kirill Sarkhanyants