18 ms·

Taiwan bans recruitment for jobs in China

217 points by baybal2 6y ago

belval 6y ago
I understand the why, but I feel like they could also ask TSMC to pay their workers more. Say India did the same for software engineers leaving for the US, we'd see it as government overreach.
- sularin 6y ago
  China is offering triple the salary to those people.It's impossible to keep up for a country as small as Taiwan. The end goal for China is not to immediately outcompete TSMC but make Taiwan beg to be integrated into China.
  - toomuchtodo 6y ago
    Very similar to how the US used military spending to cause the USSR to exhaust its resources.
    - jonathankoren 6y ago
      That’s a popular thought in the US, in particular among political activists, but from what I understand, economists dismiss Reagan’s unprecedented peacetime deficit spending on the military, and rather point to internal inefficiencies in the Soviet economy, and critically the global price of oil. Like Russia today, the Soviet Union’s economy was centered on exports of raw materials, in particular oil and gas. Wells were needing to be recapitalized, but with low prices the money wasn’t available to revitalize the economic engine of the country. Luckily for the Soviet Union, the oil crises of the 1970s jacked up the price of oil, thus allowing them to stave off collapse until prices fell back to their historical average. In other words, if it wasn’t for OPEC, the Soviet Union would have collapsed under Nixon or Carter. https://www.aei.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/20070419_Gaidar.pdf https://www.aei.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/20070419_Gaid... https://www.rbth.com/history/331825-saudi-arabia-oil-crisis-ussr-collapse https://www.rbth.com/history/331825-saudi-arabia-oil-crisis-... https://carnegieendowment.org/2017/03/29/formation-and-evolution-of-soviet-union-s-oil-and-gas-dependence-pub-68443 https://carnegieendowment.org/2017/03/29/formation-and-evolu...
      - echelon 6y ago
        What's your take on the future of China, Taiwan, Asia, and the US?
        MangoCoffee 6y ago
        China - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KY_zsc0wf1Y https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KY_zsc0wf1Y I am not an expert on geopolitics and when it come to CCP's data. I'll always assumed false/fake then verify but one thing is real is the One Child Policy. Xi want dual circulation economy but I highly doubt that's going to happen with its population decline. China going to deal with labors, support older population, long term impact on economy...etc. if Peter is correct, China is becoming another old folks home like Japan. China's birth rate is already approaching Japan's level.
        toomuchtodo 6y ago
        Africa and India have young populations, they’ll be the powerhouses of the second half of this century.
      - eloff 6y ago
        So if I remember correctly Soviet military spending reached 10% of their GDP which was unsustainable. I wonder if that was due to GDP falling with weak oil prices, or just rising military budget with a stagnant economy.
        jonathankoren 6y ago
        Probably all of the above. Fun fact: No one knows how percentage of GDP the Soviets were spending on their military, but 10% is the low estimate. (See second figure.) The fifth figure should put to rest the idea that the Soviets tried to meet an increase in US military spending in the 80s. They didn’t. In fact, the president exact opposite is true. The US increased spending due to an increase by the Soviets in the mid 1970s. Soviet spending didn’t really increase at all in the 1980s. https://nintil.com/the-soviet-union-military-spending/ https://nintil.com/the-soviet-union-military-spending/
  - varispeed 6y ago
    TSMC had 17 billion USD profit last year, right? How come they are unable to triple or in fact pay 10 times they already pay? It's simple greed in my book. It's always CEO cry that they cannot find talent while flying a private jet and offering 5 digit salary.
  - azurezyq 6y ago
    Also note that 3x is not only for TSMC employees. Even for fresh CS graduates, China mainland pays way more than taiwan. https://www.payscale.com/research/CN/Job=Software_Engineer/Salary https://www.payscale.com/research/CN/Job=Software_Engineer/S... https://www.payscale.com/research/TW/Job=Software_Engineer/Salary https://www.payscale.com/research/TW/Job=Software_Engineer/S... It's about 1/3 more, if we only consider big cities like Beijing / Shanghai / Taipei, the difference is just larger. SWE is almost the best paid job kind there. Hardware is similar. I have to say the best way is to pay more. They deserve it. Just blaming the other side doesn't help.
  - refurb 6y ago
    Similar to the US poaching Canadian software folks.
- cdumler 6y ago
  But, that's now how capitalism works. Capitalism is workers must compete for jobs, services and goods. Capitalism for companies and rich are how to buy off the right people and laws to prevent competition. I remember in business school how it drilled into us that there are only two important numbers in a company. The price of your product, and the cost of your product. "You can only dictate your cost of your product because your market dictates what you can sell it for." Every time I hear things like "we can't find enough people" or "yeah, but then we'll just pass it along in our cost to customers," I know how much we don't have capitalism.
  - sularin 6y ago
    It's a bit more nuanced than that.For Taiwan it's a matter of survival not a question of money.You literally cant compete with a behemoth like China.
  - belval 6y ago
    From your comment I am not sure that I understand if you agree of disagree with the move. Capitalism here is not the issue. If China pays more they get the workers. That's capitalism as its core. If TSMC wants to retain their workers they have to dig in their 40% profit margins and increase salaries to compete for talent. If they want to increase the price of their chips to account for that payroll increase that will make Samsung (or whoever else) more competitive and that's capitalism as well. > Every time I hear things like "we can't find enough people" or "yeah, but then we'll just pass it along in our cost to customers," I know how much we don't have capitalism. I agree and it makes me angry, individual freedoms are and should stay a thing. If you can't pay your employees a salary that makes them want to work for you, they are not the problem and your competitors are not the problem.
    - cdumler 6y ago
      > If TSMC wants to retain their workers they have to dig in their 40% profit margins and increase salaries to compete for talent. I agree completely. I was trying to comment on the Western narrative about capitalism: "Capitalism is all fine and dandy unless it impacts me negatively."
- xyzzy21 6y ago
  TSMC pays very well compared to other companies in the same market. I'm guessing you are hearing from people who've never worked for UMC or PowerChip! Of course, the other fun fact: ANY TSMC employees who went to China will never get jobs in Hsinchu et al. ever again. One-way decision only. Burned bridge.
  - belval 6y ago
    TSMC here is really a placeholder for Taiwanese companies.
  - varispeed 6y ago
    > TSMC pays very well Many big companies indeed pay relatively well in comparison to other professions, but workers are heavily underpaid. You can't justify the fact that companies have multi-billion profits and they pay "market rate" salaries at the same time. This is exploitation of workers, but because the amount they are being paid seems to be big, nobody seems to be protesting. Most tech workers should be earning in seven digits.
    - fossuser 6y ago
      I think it's more akin to sanctions on doing business in Iran. The CCP is a direct hostile threat to Taiwan, I can understand why they're doing this.
      - liuliu 6y ago
        Then just do a sanction on business with mainland like U.S. did with Iran. As it is, these are very targeted moves. Taiwan to decoupling from China would only be good for them.
      - luckylion 6y ago
        Wouldn't they do the same if it was France poaching them? The language and cultural barrier make it harder for European or American countries to recruit them, but I have no doubt they'd react similarly if they saw significant numbers leaving for Europe.
- ChemSpider 6y ago
  Yeah, but the key difference is that Taiwan is under direct threat from China. Mr. Xi openly said that he will take back Taiwan by force if necessary. Weakening the Taiwan semiconductor industry is certainly part of this playbook, too. Imagine if the US would consider India to be part of its territory and asking for a "re-unification". I am sure that in this case India would try to prevent key software engineers from leaving, too. Actually, I am surprised that Taiwan has done so little so far.
  - newacct583 6y ago
    All that may be true, but the net effect of this policy is to artificially depress wages of people working in Taiwan. Even if one buys into the "existential threat" model, it seems like forcing that burden onto the backs of your most important competitive asset is... sort of horrifyingly counterproductive.
    - ipnon 6y ago
      Presumably they would be poached to work in China and not Taiwan.
      - newacct583 6y ago
        That's the policy. But the effect is that TSMC doesn't need to raise salaries to retain workers, they can rely on the government to prevent the workers from being recruited in the first place. (edit: Can I say how amazingly hilarious it is watching all these notionally free-marketeer libertarians who believe in just compensation rush in to explain why it's totally OK for the Taiwanese government to shamelessly restrain trade as long as they're trying to stick it to the PRC?)
        threatofrain 6y ago
        Taiwanese workers may find their wages lowered due to lack of China bidding on their salaries, but there's still the rest of the world.
- bosswipe 6y ago
  The Chinese companies are owned or funded by the government, they don't have to worry about profit. It is geopolitical economic warfare. A company cannot compete against that without government help.
  - 8note 6y ago
    I could see apple or Google outspendimg the chinese government. Not worrying about profit is a function of wealth rather than government in particular
- powerapple 6y ago
  capitalism does not work any more since we have unlimited money supply, efficiency is not an issue any more. What you are suggesting is that to let the market work, which is a very conservative idea now.
sillysaurusx 6y ago
A surprisingly silly move from an otherwise intelligent country. * Taiwanese prosecutors alleged last month that China's Bitmain Technologies, the world's leading cryptocurrency mining chip developer, illegally lured more than 100 engineers in Taiwan to boost its artificial intelligence prowess.* Ah yes, the illegal “offering money in exchange for services rendered” offense.
- throwaway5752 6y ago
  That seems like it's ignoring some other important circumstances, like a month ago, when their neighbor was staging military drills and threatening their existence if they don't agree to be annexed? https://www.usnews.com/news/world-report/articles/2021-04-09/china-issues-new-threats-to-taiwan-the-islands-military-wont-stand-a-chance https://www.usnews.com/news/world-report/articles/2021-04-09... You see what has happened in Hong Kong. This is a bit more nuanced than an issue of pay.
  - xtian 6y ago
    That article is vague even by the standards of Western reporting about China. This Reuters article about the same event is more specific: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-taiwan-defence-idUSKBN2BU0HJ https://www.reuters.com/article/us-taiwan-defence-idUSKBN2BU... It says Chinese fighters flew inside Taiwan's air defense identification zone. Here's a map which shows Taiwan's ADIZ: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c9/JADIZ_and_CADIZ_and_KADIZ_in_East_China_Sea.jpg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c9/JADIZ_an... You can make your own judgement as to whether that action constitutes an escalation of threat. As far as I'm aware, China's stance on what actions would trigger a military response regarding Taiwan has not changed in decades.
    - chitowneats 6y ago
      That stance being: we own Taiwan and we will depose their government by force if necessary, eventually. China senses this moment as one of profound weakness for the West. What makes you think they aren't preparing to strike while the iron is hot? Top brass in the U.S. military is saying an invasion is likely within the decade: https://www.newsweek.com/top-commander-fears-taiwan-could-invaded-within-6-years-after-china-sends-us-warning-1574964 https://www.newsweek.com/top-commander-fears-taiwan-could-in... Edit: I fail to see how China invading Taiwan could be considered a "military response", rather than a blatantly illegal land grab according to international law. Edit 2: The international law in question is the one forbidding annexation: https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2020/07/israelopt-10-things-you-need-to-know-about-annexation/ https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2020/07/israelopt-10-...
Leary 6y ago
So.. TSMC can't post job postings in Mainland China but what's to stop engineers from being hired to SMIC?
- xyzzy21 6y ago
  1. Taiwan barring its citizens from taking such jobs - that's what the story is - did you even read it?? 2. Any person who left TSMC for SMIC is blacklisted now. They'll never work in Hsinchu et al. again.
  - Leary 6y ago
    Where in the article does it say Taiwan is barring its citizens from taking such jobs. It's simply telling the staffing companies to remove such postings. The engineers could still apply directly.
  - hollerith 6y ago
    >Taiwan barring its citizens from taking such jobs - that's what the story is - did you even read it? I just read the OP and found nothing about barring citizens from taking jobs.
- east2west 6y ago
  Believe it or not, TSMC owns and operates a fab in Mainland China, a 28nm one. So I imagine it posts quite a bit of job posting in China. It has recently applied for fab expansion in China, asking for some of that sweet, sweet free money CCP is doling out.
yongjik 6y ago
Only ban recruiters? Amateurs. South Korea used to charge those moving employees with industrial espionage. (Maybe it still does, but at least I didn't hear about these "incidents" in recent years, so I'm cautiously hopeful.)
- cigaser 6y ago
  North Korea shoots employees who try to move.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
jlduan 6y ago
I guess current TSMC employees can not leverage other job offers (most of them are from mainland China) to increase their salaries anymore. Essentially, the government is helping TSMC to keep the labor cost low.
- jasonwatkinspdx 6y ago
  Not a good take. TSMC is known for paying well above average in the industry, as well as having an internal culture of pretty fierce loyalty. On top of that, fab is very highly automated. Even though you need a lot of very smart engineers, head count is still very low compared to the value the fab creates. Suppressing labor prices is pretty low down the list of priorities for this industry. Costs are utterly dominated by capital costs to build a new generation of your fab every 2 years.
  - jlduan 6y ago
    1. if employees are paid higher than average, why does TSMC need government's very targeted policy help. 2. the need to update the costly fab constantly might be the motivation to further squeeze employees. TSMC needs to invest even more to compete with US and China.
    - godelski 6y ago
      Because China is offering 3x the pay. Obviously this isn't sustainable. But China can pay higher (through government help) that disrupts things. The pay is so high no company could sustain business. It already creates a situation where competition is out the window. The US and China should invest in their own fabs and become less dependent upon TSMC (which is happening and even if both dumped enormous funds into this it would take quite a long time to overtake TSMC. Which is why China is doing this in the first place).
      - fnord77 6y ago
        > Because China is offering 3x the pay. Obviously this isn't sustainable. in the software world, I've seen this happen and the salaries never get rolled back. So it will have to be sustainable...
ricksunny 6y ago
I think the recruitment ban policy is super-smart given the context.
Apocryphon 6y ago
Nice post about how Taiwan's work environment is sadly missing its potential: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19492995 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19492995 > komali2 on March 26, 2019 | parent | un‑favorite | on: Google will open a new office complex and add hund... >>Last year, the project trained about 5,000 students in AI technology and 50,000 digital marketers. >I feel like Taiwan represents a talent opportunity like no other. I dream of starting an engineering company there that is literally a clone of some upcoming business model, and doing nothing but capping the work week at 40 hours and guaranteeing 4 weeks vacation. I could snipe the best talent on hand in the country, which is at the very least equal to some of the best silicon valley has to offer, at nearly half the rates. Lord forbid we target foreign contracts and the company can pay near US rates. I'd pilfer everyone's engineering department ;) >Overworked, underpaid, extremely competent was my experience of Taiwanese engineering. Google is good to step up in Taiwan - I believe it will pay dividends for them. I wonder what the Google work culture and salaries are like for their Taipei 101 office engineers? Last I checked it was about 2,000$/month for entry level.
MangoCoffee 6y ago
1. TSMC pay its employees well compare to other companies in Taiwan. they are also know for paying big yearly bonus. 2. this news is interesting. i'm guessing we have reach to the point where Taiwan have to use this tactic to prevent brain drain. it also shown us how aggressive China is to make Made in China 2025, a reality. semis chip is the biggest China import. 3. there are several news about China poaching TSMC employees before. this is really going to test TSMC, from what i understand their high end node production process is componentized and not one person know the whole process from start to end. we'll see if that is true.
- qshaman 6y ago
  Yeah , if the Taiwanese government don’t want their engineers to go to China then they should be payed more. Or we could , here in the US start a program to attract talent from Taiwan , give them a green card or something.
swiley 6y ago
Competing with China seems like a pretty low bar: imagine google's ban happy AI except that instead of banning you it takes your passport, cuts of government services, and potentially throws you in prison to have your organs harvested. If you're actually losing employees to that you have a serious moral/retention/communication/pay problem.
fatjokes 6y ago
"We're free market!" ... "Whoa whoa, not like that." Seriously just pay these people more.
- danuker 6y ago
  Agree. TSMC is of strategic national importance. The people should be paid for the role.
jollybean 6y ago
This seems odd, but it's also unreasonable that a small economy would be able to defend itself from competition from a large state actor. In 'free trade' deals, the big fear is you 'open up' to competition while the other nation uses massive government money to gut your industry, wipe you out and take over. That's why the legal language on Free Trade surrounds government intervention and subsidies. China is huge and this is a 'primary strategic concern' for them, they will pay anything for the individuals they need, and of course, to give Taiwan a black eye. This is literally a form of economic warfare we are seeing with a large country trying to wipe out a strategic industry in a smaller country. So the action by Taiwan is understandable, even if it seems odd to use in the West.
ipnon 6y ago
Economic interdependence is a deterrent to war. No country's government can easily handle recessions, but a depression in China would severely jeopardize the Faustian bargain the CCP has given to the citizens of PRC: forfeit your liberties and you are guaranteed prosperity. China is Taiwan's largest trading partner. Taiwan is China's 6th largest trading partner, but the total trade of Taiwan is worth more than 1/3 of China's total trade with America. That is an extraordinary amount for a country almost 14 times smaller than the United States. If trade is reduced between the two countries, it could lessen the economic damage taken by the PRC if it were to initiate an invasion, or even increase hybrid and gray-area warfare. This would mean such actions would constitute less political risk for the CCP.
- elefanten 6y ago
  The alternative is that China will continue to salami slice and break every marginal norm they can to choke and bleed out the (ideological) competition. Taiwan has to worry about large scale invasion but they also have to worry about China using size, lack of attention to the "small stuff" and inertia to much the same effect.
  - 8note 6y ago
    It looks like a very similar situation to Canada/USA The major power will take every opportunity it can to screw over the smaller one
- MikeUt 6y ago
  On the other hand, an increase in trade gives China (the bigger partner) more leverage to pressure Taiwan using economic measures. Suppose 60% of all campaign political contributions came from China's puppet companies in Taiwan. Or if companies that lobby against China's interests suddenly (or gradually) find themselves cut off from the Chinese market, while large, politically-connected Chinese companies start undercutting them in the Taiwanese market. You don't need war to invade.
  - MeinBlutIstBlau 6y ago
zachguo 6y ago
This is meaningless. Taiwanese can still access job posting sites or be contacted by recruiters from Mainland China. There's no language barrier and they can simply buy a flight ticket to Shanghai and start working wherever they want with full Chinese citizenship. The brain drain is serious and I don't see how it can be solved unless Taiwan can offer competitive salaries against first-tier cities in the mainland, 10% of Taiwanese population is now living and working in the mainland.
- necrotic_comp 6y ago
  Taiwan isn't part of China. Using the term "mainland" is extremely loaded.
  - filoleg 6y ago
    I think they used "mainland" here, so that it is differentiated from something like Hong Kong. And in this case, that differentiation actually matters and helps the context. Tl;dr: the parent comment didn't use "mainland" to imply that Taiwan is a part of China. They used it to say "contacted by recruiters from Mainland China [as opposed to recruiters from HK]"
  - Y_Y 6y ago
    Ya exactly, China is part of Taiwan! But seriously, this is a standard non-politicised term.
  - hi5eyes 6y ago
    I think if you were to talk to hkers or taiwanese you would know that the term "mainland" is pretty well understood
  - iso8859-1 6y ago
    Taiwan is an island in a country formally known as "Republic of China". So yes, it is China. The mainland is occupied by communist rebels, but it also belongs to the Republic of China. Happy to help!
  - dathinab 6y ago
AnimalMuppet 6y ago
How free are mainland engineers to take jobs in Taiwan? Can Taiwan recruit from the mainland talent pool?
- jlduan 6y ago
  yes. and tsmc even has a fab (28nm) in mainland china.
seriousblap 6y ago
From a Taiwan vantage point, is it feasible to ban domestic workers watching China located jobs via Linkedin or other such platforms?
daodedickinson 6y ago
Seems like too little too late.
Shadonototro 6y ago
what's left when people leave your tax heaven? where rich people will find low-cost slaves? that'll happen to singapore soon

217 points by baybal2 6y ago

I understand the why, but I feel like they could also ask TSMC to pay their workers more. Say India did the same for software engineers leaving for the US, we'd see it as government overreach.

sularin 6y ago
China is offering triple the salary to those people.It's impossible to keep up for a country as small as Taiwan. The end goal for China is not to immediately outcompete TSMC but make Taiwan beg to be integrated into China.
- toomuchtodo 6y ago
  Very similar to how the US used military spending to cause the USSR to exhaust its resources.
  - jonathankoren 6y ago
    That’s a popular thought in the US, in particular among political activists, but from what I understand, economists dismiss Reagan’s unprecedented peacetime deficit spending on the military, and rather point to internal inefficiencies in the Soviet economy, and critically the global price of oil. Like Russia today, the Soviet Union’s economy was centered on exports of raw materials, in particular oil and gas. Wells were needing to be recapitalized, but with low prices the money wasn’t available to revitalize the economic engine of the country. Luckily for the Soviet Union, the oil crises of the 1970s jacked up the price of oil, thus allowing them to stave off collapse until prices fell back to their historical average. In other words, if it wasn’t for OPEC, the Soviet Union would have collapsed under Nixon or Carter. https://www.aei.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/20070419_Gaidar.pdf https://www.aei.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/20070419_Gaid... https://www.rbth.com/history/331825-saudi-arabia-oil-crisis-ussr-collapse https://www.rbth.com/history/331825-saudi-arabia-oil-crisis-... https://carnegieendowment.org/2017/03/29/formation-and-evolution-of-soviet-union-s-oil-and-gas-dependence-pub-68443 https://carnegieendowment.org/2017/03/29/formation-and-evolu...
    - echelon 6y ago
      What's your take on the future of China, Taiwan, Asia, and the US?
      - MangoCoffee 6y ago
        China - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KY_zsc0wf1Y https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KY_zsc0wf1Y I am not an expert on geopolitics and when it come to CCP's data. I'll always assumed false/fake then verify but one thing is real is the One Child Policy. Xi want dual circulation economy but I highly doubt that's going to happen with its population decline. China going to deal with labors, support older population, long term impact on economy...etc. if Peter is correct, China is becoming another old folks home like Japan. China's birth rate is already approaching Japan's level.
        toomuchtodo 6y ago
        Africa and India have young populations, they’ll be the powerhouses of the second half of this century.
    - eloff 6y ago
      So if I remember correctly Soviet military spending reached 10% of their GDP which was unsustainable. I wonder if that was due to GDP falling with weak oil prices, or just rising military budget with a stagnant economy.
      - jonathankoren 6y ago
        Probably all of the above. Fun fact: No one knows how percentage of GDP the Soviets were spending on their military, but 10% is the low estimate. (See second figure.) The fifth figure should put to rest the idea that the Soviets tried to meet an increase in US military spending in the 80s. They didn’t. In fact, the president exact opposite is true. The US increased spending due to an increase by the Soviets in the mid 1970s. Soviet spending didn’t really increase at all in the 1980s. https://nintil.com/the-soviet-union-military-spending/ https://nintil.com/the-soviet-union-military-spending/
- varispeed 6y ago
  TSMC had 17 billion USD profit last year, right? How come they are unable to triple or in fact pay 10 times they already pay? It's simple greed in my book. It's always CEO cry that they cannot find talent while flying a private jet and offering 5 digit salary.
- azurezyq 6y ago
  Also note that 3x is not only for TSMC employees. Even for fresh CS graduates, China mainland pays way more than taiwan. https://www.payscale.com/research/CN/Job=Software_Engineer/Salary https://www.payscale.com/research/CN/Job=Software_Engineer/S... https://www.payscale.com/research/TW/Job=Software_Engineer/Salary https://www.payscale.com/research/TW/Job=Software_Engineer/S... It's about 1/3 more, if we only consider big cities like Beijing / Shanghai / Taipei, the difference is just larger. SWE is almost the best paid job kind there. Hardware is similar. I have to say the best way is to pay more. They deserve it. Just blaming the other side doesn't help.
- refurb 6y ago
  Similar to the US poaching Canadian software folks.
cdumler 6y ago
But, that's now how capitalism works. Capitalism is workers must compete for jobs, services and goods. Capitalism for companies and rich are how to buy off the right people and laws to prevent competition. I remember in business school how it drilled into us that there are only two important numbers in a company. The price of your product, and the cost of your product. "You can only dictate your cost of your product because your market dictates what you can sell it for." Every time I hear things like "we can't find enough people" or "yeah, but then we'll just pass it along in our cost to customers," I know how much we don't have capitalism.
- sularin 6y ago
  It's a bit more nuanced than that.For Taiwan it's a matter of survival not a question of money.You literally cant compete with a behemoth like China.
- belval 6y ago
  From your comment I am not sure that I understand if you agree of disagree with the move. Capitalism here is not the issue. If China pays more they get the workers. That's capitalism as its core. If TSMC wants to retain their workers they have to dig in their 40% profit margins and increase salaries to compete for talent. If they want to increase the price of their chips to account for that payroll increase that will make Samsung (or whoever else) more competitive and that's capitalism as well. > Every time I hear things like "we can't find enough people" or "yeah, but then we'll just pass it along in our cost to customers," I know how much we don't have capitalism. I agree and it makes me angry, individual freedoms are and should stay a thing. If you can't pay your employees a salary that makes them want to work for you, they are not the problem and your competitors are not the problem.
  - cdumler 6y ago
    > If TSMC wants to retain their workers they have to dig in their 40% profit margins and increase salaries to compete for talent. I agree completely. I was trying to comment on the Western narrative about capitalism: "Capitalism is all fine and dandy unless it impacts me negatively."
xyzzy21 6y ago
TSMC pays very well compared to other companies in the same market. I'm guessing you are hearing from people who've never worked for UMC or PowerChip! Of course, the other fun fact: ANY TSMC employees who went to China will never get jobs in Hsinchu et al. ever again. One-way decision only. Burned bridge.
- belval 6y ago
  TSMC here is really a placeholder for Taiwanese companies.
- varispeed 6y ago
  > TSMC pays very well Many big companies indeed pay relatively well in comparison to other professions, but workers are heavily underpaid. You can't justify the fact that companies have multi-billion profits and they pay "market rate" salaries at the same time. This is exploitation of workers, but because the amount they are being paid seems to be big, nobody seems to be protesting. Most tech workers should be earning in seven digits.
  - fossuser 6y ago
    I think it's more akin to sanctions on doing business in Iran. The CCP is a direct hostile threat to Taiwan, I can understand why they're doing this.
    - liuliu 6y ago
      Then just do a sanction on business with mainland like U.S. did with Iran. As it is, these are very targeted moves. Taiwan to decoupling from China would only be good for them.
    - luckylion 6y ago
      Wouldn't they do the same if it was France poaching them? The language and cultural barrier make it harder for European or American countries to recruit them, but I have no doubt they'd react similarly if they saw significant numbers leaving for Europe.
ChemSpider 6y ago
Yeah, but the key difference is that Taiwan is under direct threat from China. Mr. Xi openly said that he will take back Taiwan by force if necessary. Weakening the Taiwan semiconductor industry is certainly part of this playbook, too. Imagine if the US would consider India to be part of its territory and asking for a "re-unification". I am sure that in this case India would try to prevent key software engineers from leaving, too. Actually, I am surprised that Taiwan has done so little so far.
- newacct583 6y ago
  All that may be true, but the net effect of this policy is to artificially depress wages of people working in Taiwan. Even if one buys into the "existential threat" model, it seems like forcing that burden onto the backs of your most important competitive asset is... sort of horrifyingly counterproductive.
  - ipnon 6y ago
    Presumably they would be poached to work in China and not Taiwan.
    - newacct583 6y ago
      That's the policy. But the effect is that TSMC doesn't need to raise salaries to retain workers, they can rely on the government to prevent the workers from being recruited in the first place. (edit: Can I say how amazingly hilarious it is watching all these notionally free-marketeer libertarians who believe in just compensation rush in to explain why it's totally OK for the Taiwanese government to shamelessly restrain trade as long as they're trying to stick it to the PRC?)
      - threatofrain 6y ago
        Taiwanese workers may find their wages lowered due to lack of China bidding on their salaries, but there's still the rest of the world.
bosswipe 6y ago
The Chinese companies are owned or funded by the government, they don't have to worry about profit. It is geopolitical economic warfare. A company cannot compete against that without government help.
- 8note 6y ago
  I could see apple or Google outspendimg the chinese government. Not worrying about profit is a function of wealth rather than government in particular
powerapple 6y ago
capitalism does not work any more since we have unlimited money supply, efficiency is not an issue any more. What you are suggesting is that to let the market work, which is a very conservative idea now.

sillysaurusx 6y ago

A surprisingly silly move from an otherwise intelligent country. * Taiwanese prosecutors alleged last month that China's Bitmain Technologies, the world's leading cryptocurrency mining chip developer, illegally lured more than 100 engineers in Taiwan to boost its artificial intelligence prowess.* Ah yes, the illegal “offering money in exchange for services rendered” offense.

throwaway5752 6y ago
That seems like it's ignoring some other important circumstances, like a month ago, when their neighbor was staging military drills and threatening their existence if they don't agree to be annexed? https://www.usnews.com/news/world-report/articles/2021-04-09/china-issues-new-threats-to-taiwan-the-islands-military-wont-stand-a-chance https://www.usnews.com/news/world-report/articles/2021-04-09... You see what has happened in Hong Kong. This is a bit more nuanced than an issue of pay.
- xtian 6y ago
  That article is vague even by the standards of Western reporting about China. This Reuters article about the same event is more specific: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-taiwan-defence-idUSKBN2BU0HJ https://www.reuters.com/article/us-taiwan-defence-idUSKBN2BU... It says Chinese fighters flew inside Taiwan's air defense identification zone. Here's a map which shows Taiwan's ADIZ: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c9/JADIZ_and_CADIZ_and_KADIZ_in_East_China_Sea.jpg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c9/JADIZ_an... You can make your own judgement as to whether that action constitutes an escalation of threat. As far as I'm aware, China's stance on what actions would trigger a military response regarding Taiwan has not changed in decades.
  - chitowneats 6y ago
    That stance being: we own Taiwan and we will depose their government by force if necessary, eventually. China senses this moment as one of profound weakness for the West. What makes you think they aren't preparing to strike while the iron is hot? Top brass in the U.S. military is saying an invasion is likely within the decade: https://www.newsweek.com/top-commander-fears-taiwan-could-invaded-within-6-years-after-china-sends-us-warning-1574964 https://www.newsweek.com/top-commander-fears-taiwan-could-in... Edit: I fail to see how China invading Taiwan could be considered a "military response", rather than a blatantly illegal land grab according to international law. Edit 2: The international law in question is the one forbidding annexation: https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2020/07/israelopt-10-things-you-need-to-know-about-annexation/ https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2020/07/israelopt-10-...

Leary 6y ago

So.. TSMC can't post job postings in Mainland China but what's to stop engineers from being hired to SMIC?

xyzzy21 6y ago
1. Taiwan barring its citizens from taking such jobs - that's what the story is - did you even read it?? 2. Any person who left TSMC for SMIC is blacklisted now. They'll never work in Hsinchu et al. again.
- Leary 6y ago
  Where in the article does it say Taiwan is barring its citizens from taking such jobs. It's simply telling the staffing companies to remove such postings. The engineers could still apply directly.
- hollerith 6y ago
  >Taiwan barring its citizens from taking such jobs - that's what the story is - did you even read it? I just read the OP and found nothing about barring citizens from taking jobs.
east2west 6y ago
Believe it or not, TSMC owns and operates a fab in Mainland China, a 28nm one. So I imagine it posts quite a bit of job posting in China. It has recently applied for fab expansion in China, asking for some of that sweet, sweet free money CCP is doling out.

yongjik 6y ago

Only ban recruiters? Amateurs. South Korea used to charge those moving employees with industrial espionage. (Maybe it still does, but at least I didn't hear about these "incidents" in recent years, so I'm cautiously hopeful.)

cigaser 6y ago
North Korea shoots employees who try to move.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]

jlduan 6y ago

I guess current TSMC employees can not leverage other job offers (most of them are from mainland China) to increase their salaries anymore. Essentially, the government is helping TSMC to keep the labor cost low.

jasonwatkinspdx 6y ago
Not a good take. TSMC is known for paying well above average in the industry, as well as having an internal culture of pretty fierce loyalty. On top of that, fab is very highly automated. Even though you need a lot of very smart engineers, head count is still very low compared to the value the fab creates. Suppressing labor prices is pretty low down the list of priorities for this industry. Costs are utterly dominated by capital costs to build a new generation of your fab every 2 years.
- jlduan 6y ago
  1. if employees are paid higher than average, why does TSMC need government's very targeted policy help. 2. the need to update the costly fab constantly might be the motivation to further squeeze employees. TSMC needs to invest even more to compete with US and China.
  - godelski 6y ago
    Because China is offering 3x the pay. Obviously this isn't sustainable. But China can pay higher (through government help) that disrupts things. The pay is so high no company could sustain business. It already creates a situation where competition is out the window. The US and China should invest in their own fabs and become less dependent upon TSMC (which is happening and even if both dumped enormous funds into this it would take quite a long time to overtake TSMC. Which is why China is doing this in the first place).
    - fnord77 6y ago
      > Because China is offering 3x the pay. Obviously this isn't sustainable. in the software world, I've seen this happen and the salaries never get rolled back. So it will have to be sustainable...

ricksunny 6y ago

I think the recruitment ban policy is super-smart given the context.

Apocryphon 6y ago

Nice post about how Taiwan's work environment is sadly missing its potential: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19492995 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19492995 > komali2 on March 26, 2019 | parent | un‑favorite | on: Google will open a new office complex and add hund... >>Last year, the project trained about 5,000 students in AI technology and 50,000 digital marketers. >I feel like Taiwan represents a talent opportunity like no other. I dream of starting an engineering company there that is literally a clone of some upcoming business model, and doing nothing but capping the work week at 40 hours and guaranteeing 4 weeks vacation. I could snipe the best talent on hand in the country, which is at the very least equal to some of the best silicon valley has to offer, at nearly half the rates. Lord forbid we target foreign contracts and the company can pay near US rates. I'd pilfer everyone's engineering department ;) >Overworked, underpaid, extremely competent was my experience of Taiwanese engineering. Google is good to step up in Taiwan - I believe it will pay dividends for them. I wonder what the Google work culture and salaries are like for their Taipei 101 office engineers? Last I checked it was about 2,000$/month for entry level.

MangoCoffee 6y ago

1. TSMC pay its employees well compare to other companies in Taiwan. they are also know for paying big yearly bonus. 2. this news is interesting. i'm guessing we have reach to the point where Taiwan have to use this tactic to prevent brain drain. it also shown us how aggressive China is to make Made in China 2025, a reality. semis chip is the biggest China import. 3. there are several news about China poaching TSMC employees before. this is really going to test TSMC, from what i understand their high end node production process is componentized and not one person know the whole process from start to end. we'll see if that is true.

qshaman 6y ago
Yeah , if the Taiwanese government don’t want their engineers to go to China then they should be payed more. Or we could , here in the US start a program to attract talent from Taiwan , give them a green card or something.

swiley 6y ago

Competing with China seems like a pretty low bar: imagine google's ban happy AI except that instead of banning you it takes your passport, cuts of government services, and potentially throws you in prison to have your organs harvested. If you're actually losing employees to that you have a serious moral/retention/communication/pay problem.

fatjokes 6y ago

"We're free market!" ... "Whoa whoa, not like that." Seriously just pay these people more.

danuker 6y ago
Agree. TSMC is of strategic national importance. The people should be paid for the role.

jollybean 6y ago

This seems odd, but it's also unreasonable that a small economy would be able to defend itself from competition from a large state actor. In 'free trade' deals, the big fear is you 'open up' to competition while the other nation uses massive government money to gut your industry, wipe you out and take over. That's why the legal language on Free Trade surrounds government intervention and subsidies. China is huge and this is a 'primary strategic concern' for them, they will pay anything for the individuals they need, and of course, to give Taiwan a black eye. This is literally a form of economic warfare we are seeing with a large country trying to wipe out a strategic industry in a smaller country. So the action by Taiwan is understandable, even if it seems odd to use in the West.

ipnon 6y ago

Economic interdependence is a deterrent to war. No country's government can easily handle recessions, but a depression in China would severely jeopardize the Faustian bargain the CCP has given to the citizens of PRC: forfeit your liberties and you are guaranteed prosperity. China is Taiwan's largest trading partner. Taiwan is China's 6th largest trading partner, but the total trade of Taiwan is worth more than 1/3 of China's total trade with America. That is an extraordinary amount for a country almost 14 times smaller than the United States. If trade is reduced between the two countries, it could lessen the economic damage taken by the PRC if it were to initiate an invasion, or even increase hybrid and gray-area warfare. This would mean such actions would constitute less political risk for the CCP.

elefanten 6y ago
The alternative is that China will continue to salami slice and break every marginal norm they can to choke and bleed out the (ideological) competition. Taiwan has to worry about large scale invasion but they also have to worry about China using size, lack of attention to the "small stuff" and inertia to much the same effect.
- 8note 6y ago
  It looks like a very similar situation to Canada/USA The major power will take every opportunity it can to screw over the smaller one
MikeUt 6y ago
On the other hand, an increase in trade gives China (the bigger partner) more leverage to pressure Taiwan using economic measures. Suppose 60% of all campaign political contributions came from China's puppet companies in Taiwan. Or if companies that lobby against China's interests suddenly (or gradually) find themselves cut off from the Chinese market, while large, politically-connected Chinese companies start undercutting them in the Taiwanese market. You don't need war to invade.
- MeinBlutIstBlau 6y ago

zachguo 6y ago

This is meaningless. Taiwanese can still access job posting sites or be contacted by recruiters from Mainland China. There's no language barrier and they can simply buy a flight ticket to Shanghai and start working wherever they want with full Chinese citizenship. The brain drain is serious and I don't see how it can be solved unless Taiwan can offer competitive salaries against first-tier cities in the mainland, 10% of Taiwanese population is now living and working in the mainland.

necrotic_comp 6y ago
Taiwan isn't part of China. Using the term "mainland" is extremely loaded.
- filoleg 6y ago
  I think they used "mainland" here, so that it is differentiated from something like Hong Kong. And in this case, that differentiation actually matters and helps the context. Tl;dr: the parent comment didn't use "mainland" to imply that Taiwan is a part of China. They used it to say "contacted by recruiters from Mainland China [as opposed to recruiters from HK]"
- Y_Y 6y ago
  Ya exactly, China is part of Taiwan! But seriously, this is a standard non-politicised term.
- hi5eyes 6y ago
  I think if you were to talk to hkers or taiwanese you would know that the term "mainland" is pretty well understood
- iso8859-1 6y ago
  Taiwan is an island in a country formally known as "Republic of China". So yes, it is China. The mainland is occupied by communist rebels, but it also belongs to the Republic of China. Happy to help!
- dathinab 6y ago

AnimalMuppet 6y ago

How free are mainland engineers to take jobs in Taiwan? Can Taiwan recruit from the mainland talent pool?

jlduan 6y ago
yes. and tsmc even has a fab (28nm) in mainland china.

seriousblap 6y ago

From a Taiwan vantage point, is it feasible to ban domestic workers watching China located jobs via Linkedin or other such platforms?

daodedickinson 6y ago

Seems like too little too late.

Shadonototro 6y ago

what's left when people leave your tax heaven? where rich people will find low-cost slaves? that'll happen to singapore soon