TSMC believes it will struggle to find workers for a new plant in Germany

As Apple's processor supplier TSMC nears completion on its Arizona iPhone plant, it is expected to begin work on a German one — but doubts there is a sufficient labor force there.

TSMC bosses have previously blamed a lack of qualified labor for it delaying the opening of its plant in Arizona, while the labor force there have complained about dangerous conditions.

According to the Financial Times, at least the labor shortage story is about to repeat itself in Germany. TSMC has previously been in talks with the German government about opening a plant, and now it's expected to announce a deal in the fall.

However, the Financial Times says that TSMC is likely to build in Saxony, the region of Germany that includes the city of Dresden. That city and its surroundings already support some seven chip fabrication plants, or fabs.

The situation is not much different wherever in Germany TSMC goes. Including a planned Intel plant, the country has almost 20 fabs. This is one reason that there is a shortage of qualified labor.

However, there is also the fact that it is estimated that over a fifth of German electrical engineers and a third of engineering supervisors, will retire in the next 10 to 12 years.

"There are real gaps there," TSMC chair Mark Liu said at an investors meeting in June 2023.

In response, the German government has passed a law that makes it easier for foreign workers to move to German. It's also likely that TSMC will at least attempt to relocate many from its Taiwan base to the country, as it is doing with the US.

4 Comments

humbug1873 170 comments · 2 Years

About 1 year ago

And obviously building a factory in MGGA-Heartland (Make Germany Great Again) of Saxony is a bad idea, because who will relocate their on their own free will?

FileMakerFeller 1561 comments · 6 Years

Lack of workers sounds like a short-term problem. With seven other fabs in the area there will be competition for talent, adding to the allure for prospective workers. If one employer doesn't suit you, you don't have to relocate to find another employer in the same industry that might be a better fit.

What's not to like?

olivertwist 24 comments · 9 Years

humbug1873 said:

And obviously building a factory in MGGA-Heartland (Make Germany Great Again) of Saxony is a bad idea, because who will relocate their on their own free will?

Here we go again with the leftist and green hatred of Germany. Haven't you gotten the gist of what the current coalition government and its "Germany last" policies are doing to Germany and the German economy in the last two years?

More and more middle-sized businesses have shut down or move their operations out of Germany due to the explosive energy cost incurred by the shutdown of Russian gas and nuclear power plants. The government hypocritically opted to import the natural gas from Qatar via polluting cargo ships and the electricity from France generated by the nuclear power plants and from Poland by coal-fired plants. The large corporations have already moved their operations permanently to China and elsewhere or planned to do so if the current coalition government continues with its destructive "green" and "globalist" politics.

Large amount of our tax money is being misappropriated: i.e. sending money and military equipment to Ukraine, spending €27 billion on the "asylum seekers" who are nothing but economic migrants taking advantage of our "generosity" (unemployment benefits, free housing, and such), reallocating the €60 billion fund for pandemic assistance to the "green hoax" and cutting down the fund for the medical care. Germany has negative growth and come last as compared to many European countries thanks to the leftist and green ideological politicians and their minions.

This is exactly why the populist political party, Alternative for Germany (AfD), has gained so much traction in the Sunday polls and in the elections lately. The East Germans who experienced the atrocities of communism and dictatorship are seeing the same parallel between the communism and "green ideologies" so they vote for AfD who put Germans and Germany first and above the EU, UN, WEF, and globalist/green agendas. With the upcoming state parliament elections on 8 October in Bremen, Bavaria, and Hesse along with Berlin Senate, we shall see who the disgruntled Germans vote for.

TSMC chose Saxony due to the other chips manufacturers and their infrastructure long established in Dresden region. Nothing to do with the politics...

spheric 2702 comments · 9 Years

Welp, that's the "reasoning" behind the rise of fascism in Germany 2023, in a nutshell.

Having the Taiwanese build a factory in a region where a good 30% of the population vote for a verifiably Neo-Nazi party could go either way, I suppose.

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