TSMC's Chang Comments on Supply-Demand Imbalance of Taiwan's College-trained Personnel

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC) Chairman Morris Chang pinpointed three factors upsetting the supply-demand imbalance in Taiwan's higher educated personnel at an advisory conference recently held by the National Science Council (NSC).

He stressed that the grievous imbalance is due to the yawning gap between expectation of graduates and reality, between corporate need and ability of post-secondary schools to meet such need, and between corporate need and different levels of training to meet such need.

Chang suggests that Taiwan's enterprises do need more vocational schools instead of the 148 universities, which still drill students on rote learning to merely pass examinations, an age-old problem that the government must boldly  reform.

He noted that Taiwan's university graduates face many difficulties, which ruin their dream to achieve better future through university education.

While his company's 40,000 employees worldwide contain  800 doctorates and around 2,000 masters, he stressed that TSMC offers pleasant work settings to attract creative talents who may not necessarily be Ph.Ds.

Chang, heading the world's No.1 silicon foundry, noted that in the decade after the Year 2000 Millennium issue Taiwan-trained engineers were widely employed by multinationals operating in Taiwan such as Philips, which hired around 30,000 locals at one time, because of fewer competitors then in Taiwan, whose professionals have been lured by China, which has taken over labor-intensive industries from Taiwan.

Losing to China in competing to retain personnel for labor-intensive industries, Taiwan, Chang added, also fails to seize the opportunities created by the rise of the Internet age, adding to his worries about how the island will deal with the problem. (KL)