TAIPEI (Reuters) – Clad in a white protective suit and face mask, Nicolas Chueh paid close attention as a guide explained the silver machinery used for manufacturing Taiwan’s advanced semiconductors.
The 16-year-old was one of many students from eight nations attending a summer camp designed to spark interest in Taiwan’s most crucial industry, which faces a potential shortage of tens of thousands of workers due to a sharp decline in birth rates.
“I’m a big fan of video games, so I’m constantly using these semiconductor products,” stated Chueh, who was signed up by his parents after showing an interest.
The camp, run by American chip design software company Synopsys (NASDAQ:SNPS), is one of several similar events held by chip firms and Taiwanese universities in recent years as global demand for semiconductors—the components that power most electronics and AI servers—continues to grow.
For the first time this year, however, Synopsys, which maintains significant operations in Taiwan to be near the semiconductor supply chain, offered the events in both Mandarin and English as Taiwan seeks out international talent.
“There is an urgent need to strengthen STEM education from an early age,” said Robert Li, Synopsys’s Taiwan chairman, who feels the camps can boost interest in the chip sector and help develop some of its future leaders.
“That is why we are launching this initiative in Taiwan, where its strength in semiconductors meets the challenge of demographic decline. Taken together, it is clear we must act here first.”
Given the constraints of Taiwan’s aging population, Synopsys is also thinking about running camps internationally to generate interest in chip manufacturing and design, he mentioned. The company charges T
33,000(1,103) for the English-language versions and T$10,900 for Mandarin.
Chueh, who holds dual Taiwan-Belgian citizenship and resides in Singapore, said he considers semiconductors a compelling career path.
“I want to lean into it to some extent because I think it will be crucial in the future with AI.”
SLUMPING BIRTH RATE
Taiwan, with a population of roughly 23 million, has an outsized impact on the global semiconductor supply chain, largely due to its chip firms like Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co, the world’s biggest contract chipmaker, as well as MediaTek and UMC.
Any downturn in the sector represents an existential risk to Taiwan, which faces invasion threats from Beijing and derives much of its global importance from its chip giants.
However, job vacancies in the semiconductor sector have increased from 19,401 in the second quarter of 2020 to 33,725 in the same quarter this year, according to local human resources firm 104 Corporation.
The industry is contending with a deficit of both highly skilled experts, like IC design and semiconductor R&D engineers, and vital production personnel, such as operators and assembly technicians.
Filling these positions locally is becoming more difficult each year as Taiwan’s annual birth count has fallen from over 210,000 in 2014 to about 135,000 in 2024, based on government data. The number of STEM graduates has also decreased by around 15% in that timeframe, Ministry of Education data shows.
“Growth in Taiwan’s semiconductor industry has been quite rapid, faster than what our schools can produce in terms of engineering talent each year,” noted Leuh Fang, chairman of Vanguard International Semiconductor, a Taiwan-based chipmaker connected with TSMC.
’THE FUTURE WORKFORCE’
Last year, the National Taiwan University initiated a global undergraduate semiconductor program for international students, which incorporated Mandarin classes to help them achieve the proficiency required to remain and work in Taiwan.
The program currently has over 40 students from more than 10 countries enrolled.
TSMC has also started looking for foreign talent by supporting a program in Germany’s Saxony state, which will send German students to study for a semester at Taiwanese universities before interning at TSMC.
Other efforts are trying to spark interest among children as young as 10.
Taiwan’s National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University (NYCU) began an outreach program in July, supported by TSMC, intended to make chip science engaging through interactive learning tools and online games.
“The issue everyone is discussing now is where the future workforce will come from,” said NYCU President Chi-Hung Lin.
“If they’re curious now, they won’t reject it later and some may even grow to like this kind of work.”
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