Vietnam has the opportunity to join more deeply into the world’s semiconductor ecosystem. However, it is meeting hurdles when implementing the dream because of the serious shortage of workers for the semiconductor industry in Vietnam and in the rest of the world.

According to Nguyen Phu Hung, director of the Department of Science and Technology for Economic Technical Branches under the Ministry of Science and Technology (MST), 5,000 engineers work in the semiconductor industry in Vietnam. 

This is a special industry which requires a large workforce and highly-qualified workers. Hung commented that the biggest challenge for Vietnam when developing the semiconductor industry is human resources.

The lack of workers is not only a headache for Vietnam, but also for many developed economies in the world.

Talking with VietNamNet, Daniel Lin, in charge of developing emerging markets from Media Tek, confirmed the problem.

“In Singapore, we work with universities to recruit workers early for the industry, but it is very difficult to attract talents in the field,” Lin said. “The same problem is also occurring in Taiwan. Media Tek organizes recruitment campaigns every year, but the number of candidates is very modest."

He affirmed that the pay for microchip designing engineers is good, but it takes a lot of time for training. Media Tek is considering expanding its business, but it is meeting  a lot of challenges.

According to Nguyen Vinh Quang, CEO of FPT Semiconductor, the world is lacking semiconductor engineers because in developed countries, engineering is not a popular major

He said young people in the countries want to study majors related to finance and business, because engineering is a difficult and dry major, while incomes they can expect are not higher than workers in other business fields. As a result, the number of semiconductor engineers is on the decrease, while the demand is on the rise.

“The US, Japan, Taiwan, China and European countries all face the same problem, for different reasons,” he said.

Domestic training

To solve the question about human resources for Vietnam’s semiconductor industry, MST is planning to join forces with other ministries and branches to deploy a program on preparing a workforce for the industry, according to Hung.

MST is considering building a mechanism that encourages domestic and foreign companies to make investments in semiconductor labs in Vietnam, while the operational labs and innovation centers will be set up under the institutes and universities which have studies on semiconductors. 

According to Hung, one of the solutions to the need for highly-qualified semiconductor workforce is foreign resources.

“Vietnam will attract intelligence and technologies from other countries, including Vietnamese-born scientists operating in the semiconductor field,” Hung said.

He went on to say that MST will deploy research, technology transfer, bilateral and multilateral cooperation programs with countries which have advantages in the field of semiconductors, thus creating research teams that can master the core industries in the field.

Quang from FPT Semiconductor said that Vietnam is in no way inferior to other countries in terms of the quality of the workforce in engineering sectors. Many Vietnamese have gained fame in the global semiconductor industry.

“We have Le Duy Loan (Texas Instruments) in the US, Nguyen Thi Bich Yen, PhD (Soitec) and Prof Le Hanh Phuc. In Japan, we also have many Vietnamese famous in the field,” Quang said.

FPT Semiconductor, in an effort to produce more semiconductor engineers to settle the shortage, has promised the PM to train 15,000 engineers more. FPT University and FPT Semiconductor have announced the establishment of a Microchip Semiconductor Faculty, which will be a major supplier of workers to the industry.

Also according to Quang, training will be carried out with foreign curriculums, therefore, semiconductor engineers, when finishing training courses, will not only serve the domestic market, but also can work in many countries. Even if Vietnamese engineers work overseas, they will still be q valuable workforce for the Vietnamese semiconductor industry when they come back to Vietnam five or 10 years later.

FPT will also organize training programs for junior college education level (3-year training). Some chip packaging firms now have demand for engineers and high-grade workers.

Le My