Samsung to ramp up hiring for foundry business

South Korea's Samsung Electronics Co. plans to sharply increase the number of local employees in its semiconductor division this year to address talent shortages unique to the foundry business.

The world’s top memory chipmaker seeks to add 7,000 employees this year and train them as skilled semiconductor workers, according to officials familiar with the matter on Tuesday.

That is its largest recruitment drive since it hired 5,000 new employees in 2020 for the digital service division. 

“In the foundry business, Samsung is facing a bigger labor shortage than its competitors,” said one of the sources.

“The majority of new employees will likely be dispatched to foundry production lines.”

Since 2018, Samsung has recruited about 3,000 workers per year. As of end-2021, it employed 63,000 semiconductor workers; that figure had increased to 67,000 as of the end of the first half of this year. 

About 60% of workers are dedicated to the memory chip segment. By comparison, foundry leader Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC) has about 64,000 workers dedicated to the foundry business.

Samsung’s hiring spree follows its parent Samsung Group’s announcement in May of its largest-ever investment plan of 450 trillion won over the next five years. Most of the spending is slated to go toward its semiconductor sector as it expands production lines both in Korea and the US.

The group earmarked 80% of the investment, or 360 trillion won, for domestic spending.

In the US, Samsung operates two chip plants in Austin, Texas, and plans to build a second foundry plant in Taylor, Texas, for $17 billion.

The facility expansion comes as the semiconductor industry undergoes a shift to small-scale production of various types of semiconductor chips, which requires heavy spending on R&D.

Korea is not alone in looking for chip talent; the US, Europe, China and Taiwan are all ramping up spending to grow their chip industry.

Foundry leader TSMC and Intel Corp. are known to be in a rush to hire skilled semiconductor workers, having reached out to executives of Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix Inc., the world's No. 2 memory chipmaker.

TSMC is expanding its production lines in the US and Japan. Intel announced its re-entry into the foundry market last year.

RETIRED EXECUTIVES  AS SEMICONDUCTOR PROFESSORS

To ease a dire manpower shortage in the semiconductor industry, the Korean government unveiled a plan this month to train 150,000 individuals at universities over the next decade.

In line with the higher student quotas for semiconductor departments at local colleges, Samsung is in talks with universities to dispatch its retired senior executives and those nearing retirement as research professors.

Korea’s semiconductor industry is expected to face a shortage of at least 30,000 workers over the next year, according to the Korea Semiconductor Industry Association.

Write to Shin-Young Park at nyusos@hankyung.com
Yeonhee Kim edited this article