The Labor Ministry said that all Taiwanese and foreign staffing companies on the island as a general rule may no longer post openings for jobs located in China, especially those involving critical industries such as integrated circuits and semiconductors, according to a notice seen by Nikkei Asia.
The move comes as Beijing seeks to build up the mainland’s semiconductor industry — a goal that has intensified demand for Taiwanese engineers.
“Due to geopolitical tension between the U.S. and China, China’s semiconductor development has suffered some setbacks and as a result China has become more aggressive in poaching and targeting top Taiwanese chip talent to help build a self-sufficient supply chain,” the ministry said in the notice.
China imported $350 billion worth of semiconductors in 2020—more than the value of the crude oil it imported the same year, according to the country’s customs data. Importing semiconductors also accounts for the country’s largest categorical trade deficit, where the difference between what China imports and exports for this particular type of goods is the widest.
China has been the world’s largest importer of chips since 2005. As a result, global chipmakers and the governments in their home countries have grown obsessed with its plan to pursue independence on semiconductors for the past few years.
https://furtherasia.com/china-spends-more-importing-semiconductors-than-oil-2/
At present, there are just 30,000 graduates of IC majors in China each year. Yet as of last year, there were 200,000 work positions that could not be filled due to a lack of skilled professionals. There were only 511,900 people working in the IC sector when at least 720,000 such staff were needed.
Chinese industries are also currently facing a severe shortage in semiconductor chips due to geopolitical tensions and the ongoing supply chain disruption caused by the Covid-19 pandemic. The country’s own chip production capacity remains very limited due to a dearth of lithography machines and chemical materials that it is unable to purchase as a result of recent US trade sanctions.
Tsinghua University’s new School of Integrated Circuits opened today in a bid to solve the underlying problems holding China’s chip industry back and to plug a gaping hole in available talent.