8 ms·

Taiwan is running low on engineers

58 points by mikhael 3y ago

birdyrooster 3y ago
Taiwan has such an incredible density of amazing companies it is no wonder they are having trouble hiring, there is huge demand for their brands. Ubiquiti and Synology are two that come to mind that I adore.
- JaimeThompson 3y ago
  Judging by the rather "interesting" state of Ubiquiti's software as of late perhaps they are having great trouble hiring people.
- rcme 3y ago
  I thought Ubiquiti was American?
  - allset_ 3y ago
    It is, though it has locations elsewhere. https://ubiquity.com/company/locations/ https://ubiquity.com/company/locations/
    - selectodude 3y ago
      That’s the wrong Ubiquiti.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
- nebula8804 3y ago
  When it comes to consumer brands I can't think of any recent positive experiences with Taiwan. ASUS, MSI, Acer, HTC, and Mediatek. All have shipped a bunch of junk I have had to deal with that makes me want to swear off each of these brands.
  - rubatuga 3y ago
    Big fan of nvidia and asrock motherboards !
    - nebula8804 3y ago
      As far as I know nvidia does not make motherboards. Asrock is former ASUS and appears to be a budget alternative to ASUS and let me tell you that in my experience they are also hot garbage.
polski-g 3y ago
Countries need to get serious about raising their birth rates. Korea is expected to have a 94% decline in the Korean population in 3 generations.
- nashashmi 3y ago
  I dont think there is any solution that govts can put forward. It is far from their purpose. There needs to be a change in social approach. And treating men and women like they are the same is the first problem.
  - idiotsecant 3y ago
    This is absolutely a governmental issue- S Korea and the US are similar in that people are having fewer children in these places because having children is prohibitively expensive. Having children is prohibitively expensive because income inequality is at an all time high - a smaller and smaller portion of people are able to capture more and more of the resources. Income inequality is a direct result of government policy and can be mediated with changes to those policies. It's happened before, and it can happen again.
    - nashashmi 3y ago
      Are the birth rates higher among rich people? My impression is that they have fewer children. Historically, More materials and wealth means less children. Can govt really cause people to have more children? Or can they just remove roadblocks? I would go with the latter. The former is a social problem.
      - polski-g 3y ago
        The very rich and very poor have a lot of children. The middle have little.
      - renewiltord 3y ago
        In the US it depends entirely on whether you're married. Household income goes up? You get more likely to have kids if you're married. Hard to tease out but here's a start https://www2.census.gov/programs-surveys/demo/tables/fertility/time-series/household-income/t7.xlsx https://www2.census.gov/programs-surveys/demo/tables/fertili...
ThePowerOfFuet 3y ago
https://archive.is/LHwKj https://archive.is/LHwKj
totalZero 3y ago
Meanwhile, Intel just confirmed more layoffs.
- seanmcdirmid 3y ago
  Intel has been going down the drain for a long time now.
blululu 3y ago
I really wish the New York Times would stop this anti-market, anti-labor spin. An article about a talent 'shortage' that mentions workers being compelled to work long hours deep into the night for modest wages. There are no shortages in a free market - just cheapskates.
- js8 3y ago
  The idea of "free market" (it's only a model, not reality) has an explicit anti-labor bias. The apple doesn't care about its price, but the worker does; this why it's nonsensical to treat both as commodities. But if the price of labor is determined by a divine entity (the market forces), rather than other people (capitalists), what can you do about it? Are you gonna argue with the God of invisible hand?
  - Convolutional 3y ago
    > Are you gonna argue with the God of invisible hand? Especially when you consider modern talk of the invisible hand, and then go back to Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations and see his one reference to the invisible hand in the book is of something that is against free trade between nations.
- riffraff 3y ago
  But the labour market is artificially constrained by government policy relative to immigration. If you already have full occupation and you cannot import workers you will have shortages no matter how much you get paid, people will not get a 5y degree in one month no matter how much you pay.
  - Dylan16807 3y ago
    Step one is drawing in workers from other companies that are not willing to pay more. In theory we could reach a point where all the workers are doing so well that even large pay won't draw them in. But companies don't wait to get anywhere near that point to start complaining about how they "can't" hire.
- 3y ago
orange_joe 3y ago
don't believe the lies, FANG was crying to the government and journalists daily that the US didn't have enough software engineers for the better part of two decades. Then they laid off 50,000 people despite being immensely profitable.
- itake 3y ago
  My cousin works at TSMC in Tainan. The article aligns with everything he said to me about the work conditions and is coworkers quitting before the contracts ending.
janmo 3y ago
I have a few friends in Taiwan and the working condition in general (In all domains) aren't good and the cost of living are quite high especially in Taipei. The working culture is similar to that of Japan, so in many cases it is expected for employees to stay at work 12 hours per day, and sometimes to come work during the weekend.
sfmike 3y ago
they're running low but maybe it's paretto that only the super interested die hard nerd love of the engineering are remain. It's been the same culture awhile and we have TSMC nvidia amd gigabyte asus lists go on and on so clearly something is being done right especially with chips motherboards and Gpus.
syngrog66 3y ago
I don't know all the factors involved, but I know as an engineer if I have a choice of 2 or more places to work, I'm strongly incented to go live in a place that is NOT under invasion/blockade threat by China. Plus Taiwan is an island. It would be much harder to get in or out, in wartime, than say Ukraine. Harder to reinforce and resupply. Granted, maybe you'd have enough time to escape, but maybe you wouldn't, and either way I wouldnt want to grow a family there or friendships if that dark cloud loomed overhead, threatening the loss of all. Plenty of other places to live and work instead. Now... if they offered 5X more pay than anywhere else, then sure, maybe. ;-)

58 points by mikhael 3y ago

Taiwan has such an incredible density of amazing companies it is no wonder they are having trouble hiring, there is huge demand for their brands. Ubiquiti and Synology are two that come to mind that I adore.

JaimeThompson 3y ago
Judging by the rather "interesting" state of Ubiquiti's software as of late perhaps they are having great trouble hiring people.
rcme 3y ago
I thought Ubiquiti was American?
- allset_ 3y ago
  It is, though it has locations elsewhere. https://ubiquity.com/company/locations/ https://ubiquity.com/company/locations/
  - selectodude 3y ago
    That’s the wrong Ubiquiti.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
nebula8804 3y ago
When it comes to consumer brands I can't think of any recent positive experiences with Taiwan. ASUS, MSI, Acer, HTC, and Mediatek. All have shipped a bunch of junk I have had to deal with that makes me want to swear off each of these brands.
- rubatuga 3y ago
  Big fan of nvidia and asrock motherboards !
  - nebula8804 3y ago
    As far as I know nvidia does not make motherboards. Asrock is former ASUS and appears to be a budget alternative to ASUS and let me tell you that in my experience they are also hot garbage.

polski-g 3y ago

Countries need to get serious about raising their birth rates. Korea is expected to have a 94% decline in the Korean population in 3 generations.

nashashmi 3y ago
I dont think there is any solution that govts can put forward. It is far from their purpose. There needs to be a change in social approach. And treating men and women like they are the same is the first problem.
- idiotsecant 3y ago
  This is absolutely a governmental issue- S Korea and the US are similar in that people are having fewer children in these places because having children is prohibitively expensive. Having children is prohibitively expensive because income inequality is at an all time high - a smaller and smaller portion of people are able to capture more and more of the resources. Income inequality is a direct result of government policy and can be mediated with changes to those policies. It's happened before, and it can happen again.
  - nashashmi 3y ago
    Are the birth rates higher among rich people? My impression is that they have fewer children. Historically, More materials and wealth means less children. Can govt really cause people to have more children? Or can they just remove roadblocks? I would go with the latter. The former is a social problem.
    - polski-g 3y ago
      The very rich and very poor have a lot of children. The middle have little.
    - renewiltord 3y ago
      In the US it depends entirely on whether you're married. Household income goes up? You get more likely to have kids if you're married. Hard to tease out but here's a start https://www2.census.gov/programs-surveys/demo/tables/fertility/time-series/household-income/t7.xlsx https://www2.census.gov/programs-surveys/demo/tables/fertili...

ThePowerOfFuet 3y ago

https://archive.is/LHwKj https://archive.is/LHwKj

totalZero 3y ago

Meanwhile, Intel just confirmed more layoffs.

seanmcdirmid 3y ago
Intel has been going down the drain for a long time now.

blululu 3y ago

I really wish the New York Times would stop this anti-market, anti-labor spin. An article about a talent 'shortage' that mentions workers being compelled to work long hours deep into the night for modest wages. There are no shortages in a free market - just cheapskates.

js8 3y ago
The idea of "free market" (it's only a model, not reality) has an explicit anti-labor bias. The apple doesn't care about its price, but the worker does; this why it's nonsensical to treat both as commodities. But if the price of labor is determined by a divine entity (the market forces), rather than other people (capitalists), what can you do about it? Are you gonna argue with the God of invisible hand?
- Convolutional 3y ago
  > Are you gonna argue with the God of invisible hand? Especially when you consider modern talk of the invisible hand, and then go back to Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations and see his one reference to the invisible hand in the book is of something that is against free trade between nations.
riffraff 3y ago
But the labour market is artificially constrained by government policy relative to immigration. If you already have full occupation and you cannot import workers you will have shortages no matter how much you get paid, people will not get a 5y degree in one month no matter how much you pay.
- Dylan16807 3y ago
  Step one is drawing in workers from other companies that are not willing to pay more. In theory we could reach a point where all the workers are doing so well that even large pay won't draw them in. But companies don't wait to get anywhere near that point to start complaining about how they "can't" hire.
3y ago

orange_joe 3y ago

don't believe the lies, FANG was crying to the government and journalists daily that the US didn't have enough software engineers for the better part of two decades. Then they laid off 50,000 people despite being immensely profitable.

itake 3y ago
My cousin works at TSMC in Tainan. The article aligns with everything he said to me about the work conditions and is coworkers quitting before the contracts ending.

janmo 3y ago

I have a few friends in Taiwan and the working condition in general (In all domains) aren't good and the cost of living are quite high especially in Taipei. The working culture is similar to that of Japan, so in many cases it is expected for employees to stay at work 12 hours per day, and sometimes to come work during the weekend.

sfmike 3y ago

they're running low but maybe it's paretto that only the super interested die hard nerd love of the engineering are remain. It's been the same culture awhile and we have TSMC nvidia amd gigabyte asus lists go on and on so clearly something is being done right especially with chips motherboards and Gpus.

syngrog66 3y ago

I don't know all the factors involved, but I know as an engineer if I have a choice of 2 or more places to work, I'm strongly incented to go live in a place that is NOT under invasion/blockade threat by China. Plus Taiwan is an island. It would be much harder to get in or out, in wartime, than say Ukraine. Harder to reinforce and resupply. Granted, maybe you'd have enough time to escape, but maybe you wouldn't, and either way I wouldnt want to grow a family there or friendships if that dark cloud loomed overhead, threatening the loss of all. Plenty of other places to live and work instead. Now... if they offered 5X more pay than anywhere else, then sure, maybe. ;-)