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RTFA.

The issue is NOT whether there are enough skilled workers to staff the working fab once it is done... The issue at hand is that there aren't enough skilled workers TO BUILD THE PLACE TO SPECIFICATION.

All this hot air being blown around, and you didn't stop to actually RTFA.

Geez, people.

About 99% of the above rants, complaints, comments, etc are utterly groundless.

Sadly, being outraged at the drop of a hat is now the new normal.
 
At the earnings call executives mentioned many times the need government support, just mentioned leak of skilled staff once, TSCM is delaying the US fab operation by intended, they still not satisfied with the terms of the Chips Act incentives, and local supply chain is not ready yet. Labour issues is a scapegoat.
Did TSMC get any funding up front or was it all in tax incentives? If there was any up front, then I think it’s clear the game they’re playing. I just wonder how many states will go through the same process before they learn?
 
Then pay them well.
It’s the location. Most of the semiconductor experience would have 45+ minute commute. There‘s nothing in Anthem But new apartments. anthem is the last exit on I-17 before you start driving up into the mountains. No thanks I’ll stay nearby.
 
Intel techs work 12 hour shifts 3 days one week 4 days the next.
They also get around 280 hours of personal/vacation/floating holiday Per year.
Also, every 4 years a 4 week paid sabbatical.

TSMC is about 1/3 the time off and no sabbatical.
 
I’m pretty sure it’s not “skilled worker shortage” but the problem with the salary offered for this position. No American wants to work for such a low wage 🤣 that’s why they have to bring Taiwan workers to USA xD lmao.
No American wants to work such high wages either.

I wouldn't do construction work in Phoenix AZ for a million dollars. I was trained in arts and engineering instead.

The people that want to do this kind of work are lower-skilled immigrants, which, unfortunately, the American working-class are fighting against.
 
Intel techs work 12 hour shifts 3 days one week 4 days the next.
They also get around 280 hours of personal/vacation/floating holiday Per year.
Also, every 4 years a 4 week paid sabbatical.

TSMC is about 1/3 the time off and no sabbatical.
That's nice. Last time I checked, chip design techs don't generally construct chip factories.
 
It may be true that there are not enough Americans entering this field, but considering I can find dozens of articles about problems concerning wages and work culture at this plant I suspect there's a little more at play here than just shortage.
No. The pool of skilled workers for this type of thing is much larger in Asia.
America is educating for different skills and has been for decades. The lack of production engineers in America has been the problem for years. When asked in 2010 why iPhone manufacturing wasn't done in the U.S. replied that in China Apple could get 30,000 production engineers to support factory workers in a weekend and that there weren't 30,000 of those engineers in the whole of the U.S. That was 2010. Tim has also mentioned it. Check out "How the U.S. Missed out on iPhone Work" a 2012 article in the New York Times. For America those types of jobs are gone.
 
Apple didn't do any of that but prices keep going up.

- Inflation
- Qualcomm double dipping on the 5G royalties
- More product lines because consumers want variance means less economies of scale

list goes on.

Also Apple had to give Chinese some manufacturing setup and design know-how in order to make their iPhones over there and in return they single handedly created Chinese mobile industry which now dominates the whole world with their dump subsidized pricing.

Don't really see the relevance. Apple wouldn't be what it is today without China.
 
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The fault is clearly with TSMC who clearly are not prepared to train people to do the job, they want ready made experienced people because it's cheaper to hire them then and get them working NOW rather than take a couple of weeks training people. The UK is experiencing this exact problem when it left the EU. The UK used to have a very good well established apprenticeships schemes in nearly every employment sector but this was eroded when the Labor government did an open door policy which resulted in thousands of thousands of already skilled workers from the EU taking the jobs from apprenticeships. This resulted in companies doing away with apprenticeships and getting cheap EU labor. Now with brexit, those EU workers went back to their home countries and left a skills shortage in the UK with companies constantly complaining at the UK government to relax rules to allow EU people to come back into the UK to work whereas the government is telling those companies to train up UK people instead. This is what should be happening in the US with TSMC.

Where I lived at the time a Japanese company announced they were building a large electronics manufacturing factory and put out job adverts for local people to apply for all sorts of jobs. The thing was, this Japanese company had a training program of two weeks. Everyone was given two weeks training to see if they could do the job they had applied for. If you was good enough at the end of the two weeks training, you was hired. I cannot see why TSMC cannot do the same.
 
Nice BS story. Its because TSMC doesn't want to pay enough money for their workers. In Asia they are getting 10 cents on the dollar compared to the US worker. Nice spinning if you ask me. lol
 
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I hate to break it to some you, but the lack of qualified construction labor for unique industrial capacity is also due to offshoring/outsourcing labor and selling everyone on the idea that the US would just be an economy of knowledge and finance workers.
 
I hate to break it to some you, but the lack of qualified construction labor for unique industrial capacity is also due to offshoring/outsourcing labor and selling everyone on the idea that the US would just be an economy of knowledge and finance workers.

The Service Economy mirage goes hand in hand with the Trickle Down Economy mirage.

Actually mirage is too kind. It was conservative fraud aided by political malpractice in service of the rich.
 
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And it won’t even be operational until next year at the earliest. Meanwhile, 3nm tech is rumored to be making its way into iPhones this year and Macs and iPads after that. These aren’t morons, and I don’t know the chip business, but it doesn’t make sense — I must be missing something.

EDIT: I was missing something, as another user pointed out — Apple isn’t the only customer of TSMC — a fact that seemed to escape my little feline mind.
I would also add that Apple is still making and selling new m1 devices. And other devices with older chips.
 
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And it won’t even be operational until next year at the earliest. Meanwhile, 3nm tech is rumored to be making its way into iPhones this year and Macs and iPads after that. These aren’t morons, and I don’t know the chip business, but it doesn’t make sense — I must be missing something.

EDIT: I was missing something, as another user pointed out — Apple isn’t the only customer of TSMC — a fact that seemed to escape my little feline mind.
Today, most chips are build on MUCH larger scales than 3 or even 5 nm. Take any bit of electronic apart and look inside and you see MANY small chips. only 1 or maybe 3 of them will be high-end and made with the latest process. The majority are "commodity chips" and sold at very low cost (well under $1 each)

The bulk of the parts in your phone, TV or computers are not the leading edge chips that you read about.
 
Did TSMC get any funding up front or was it all in tax incentives? If there was any up front, then I think it’s clear the game they’re playing. I just wonder how many states will go through the same process before they learn?
my briefly understanding is Chips Act is not handing out free money, company receive the tax incentive have to share the exceed profit to US gov in the long run, TSMC is not satisfy US gov put its hand too deep into their pocket, that's why TSMC Japan fab is on schedule and US fab is delayed.
 
THIS is the problem with manufacturing in America. It's not that Americans get higher wages, it's that a large enough number of Americans don't have the skills needed by today's high-tech manufacturers. Companies have no choice but to turn to Asia and India. America is so behind the rest of the world it's not even funny.
This is not the reason they moved away from the USA... We lost the skilled workforce after they moved jobs away to other country's . As the jobs become available so to will the workforce its just going to take time.
 
THIS is the problem with manufacturing in America. It's not that Americans get higher wages, it's that a large enough number of Americans don't have the skills needed by today's high-tech manufacturers. Companies have no choice but to turn to Asia and India. America is so behind the rest of the world it's not even funny.
Nice, your disdain for America led to a hasty and wrong conclusion. Numerous posts from Arizona locals contradict your hypothesis with easily google-able info like the fact that there are many better-paying semiconductor manufactures in Arizona without a hiring issue. Pay people what they are worth and they will work—it’s basic economics. Your insinuation that all 300+ million Americans are so stupid and unskilled that TSMC cannot find even a few hundred people capable of working their job is naïve and, quite frankly, insulting.
 
Seems like there's some confusion. The article refers to the actual construction of the plant, not the production of chips:

"According to The Wall Street Journal, TSMC is finding it difficult to hire people with expertise in building semiconductor factories in the United States. TSMC may have to bring in experienced technicians temporarily from Taiwan, which would delay production of the first 4nm chips until 2025."
 
The fault is clearly with TSMC who clearly are not prepared to train people to do the job, they want ready made experienced people because it's cheaper to hire them then and get them working NOW rather than take a couple of weeks training people.
When we're talking about the construction and build crews in what way does it make sense for TSMC to spend time / money training people that do not directly work for them and only benefit from them for a short period? It is not their fault that the US construction workers and civil engineers don't have the experience to build a modern silicon fab.

Attacking another culture's work ethos, or going after the chosen career and study paths of a small fraction of our population because our workers don't have the skills for the job really isn't going to solve the actual problem. Instead of knee jerk reactions, finger pointing and lip service everyone should be figuring out how to make sure that any Americans that are working on the buildout are getting the maximum amount of experience and knowledge by working as close as possible with anyone that comes from Taiwan. You know, so the next time someone wants to build one of these, or we need to build one ourselves if the world flips upside-down, we might actually have a chance.
 
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