Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), one of the world’s largest advanced computer chip manufacturers, continues finding its efforts to get its Arizona facility up and running to be more difficult than it anticipated. The chip maker’s 5nm wafer fab was supposed to go online in 2024 but has faced numerous setbacks and now isn’t expected to begin production until 2025. The trouble the semiconductor has been facing boils down to a key difference between Taiwan and the U.S.: workplace culture. A New York Times report highlights the continuing struggle.
One big problem is that TSMC has been trying to do things the Taiwanese way, even in the U.S. In Taiwan, TSMC is known for extremely rigorous working conditions, including 12-hour work days that extend into the weekends and calling employees into work in the middle of the night for emergencies. TSMC managers in Taiwan are also known to use harsh treatment and threaten workers with being fired for relatively minor failures.
TSMC quickly learned that such practices won’t work in the U.S. Recent reports indicated that the company’s labor force in Arizona is leaving the new plant over these perceived abuses, and TSMC is struggling to fill those vacancies. TSMC is already heavily dependent on employees brought over from Taiwan, with almost half of its current 2,200 employees in Phoenix coming over as Taiwanese transplants.
Yeah… I personally was surprised there are developed nations with a more toxic corpo culture than the US. But apparently the Asian powerhouses are all built on corporate servitude.
For a lot of Asian countries the “asian dream” is still somewhat realistic.
Just look at China or Korea. Many of the older folks there grew up in abject poverty, but the countries managed to develop themselves through hard labor into modern, wealthy nations. The promise of “my kids will have it better” was actually true for them. And that promise still drives a lot of the work culture. In China the first cracks already appear, since for the first time in 50 years or so, the current youth has no way up anymore.
Japan is slowly getting better, but it’s a long road ahead. There are more laws and they’re actually enforcing some of them with regard to harassment and hours worked (a lot of people would clock out and keep working, but they’re trying to make the penalties bit enough to stop it from what I hear. My company is certainly strict about it).
It’d be nice to have european-level vacations before I retire, but that I don’t see happening
Central/Eastern Europe somewhat does.
Also, I don’t like how in much of Europe for many jobs you can’t quit at will, you legally have to give notice (and sometimes not a short one).
At will employment is horse shit. A notice period on a month or 2 months is fine… you agree up front so you know. And your next employer counts this in when hiring. And mostly you have some vacation days you can take to shorten it a bit.
In the Netherlands a determined contract of a year has no “out” other than an agreement between the 2 parties… otherwise you serve it in full. Which is what you agree to when starting it.
Agreeing to it doesn’t mean I like it…
Trapping people in terrible jobs sucks. Especially when it’s considered the legal standard and your contract has to state it’s at will(which might be illegal in some places)
It goes both ways, your employer can’t fire you at will either. But it goes further, usually you have a probation period, in Germany it’s up to 6 months during which you can leave any time, or be fired at any time. Beyond that there’s always the option to agree on a shorter notice period, but if you’re getting fired and you agree to a shorter period you won’t get unemployment compensation for that time.
