Worker treatment that's acceptable in Taiwan simply won't be tolerated by US employees

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), one of the world’s largest advanced computer chip manufacturers, continues finding its efforts to get its Arizona facility up and running to be more difficult than it anticipated. The chip maker’s 5nm wafer fab was supposed to go online in 2024 but has faced numerous setbacks and now isn’t expected to begin production until 2025. The trouble the semiconductor has been facing boils down to a key difference between Taiwan and the U.S.: workplace culture. A New York Times report highlights the continuing struggle.

One big problem is that TSMC has been trying to do things the Taiwanese way, even in the U.S. In Taiwan, TSMC is known for extremely rigorous working conditions, including 12-hour work days that extend into the weekends and calling employees into work in the middle of the night for emergencies. TSMC managers in Taiwan are also known to use harsh treatment and threaten workers with being fired for relatively minor failures.

TSMC quickly learned that such practices won’t work in the U.S. Recent reports indicated that the company’s labor force in Arizona is leaving the new plant over these perceived abuses, and TSMC is struggling to fill those vacancies. TSMC is already heavily dependent on employees brought over from Taiwan, with almost half of its current 2,200 employees in Phoenix coming over as Taiwanese transplants.

  • @432English
    16•1 month ago

    So what happens to Taiwanese manufacturing when their population collapses due to a super low birthrate. They right behind South Korea in lowest TFR.

    • @TheGrandNagusEnglish
      11•1 month ago

      It’s happening all over the place. They’re either going to have to lean heavily into automation (where possible), and/or accept mass immigration from parts of the world that continue to have a high birth rate – although as we’re seeing in a lot of places, that can be a tough sell politically.

      • @[email protected]English
        5•1 month ago

        accept mass immigration from parts of the world that continue to have a high birth rate

        Would that not likely result in similar, but different, friction between cultural expectations about working conditions etc?

        To my thinking you’d still have the problem TMSC is having right now, just more widespread as they have to adapt to whatever the culture being imported everywhere to shore up worker counts is everywhere it is happening.