After 8 p.m., the work of headhunter Jimmy came to an end. Jimmy's organization focuses on talent recruitment in the high-tech field, and the chip industry is his main direction. Jimmy tends to be more active after work. "When you call at work during the day, the other party is often busy. People who develop chips are usually not busy."
Since zhongxinghua was sanctioned, domestic attention to chips has increased significantly. The "chip shortage" in recent one or two years also makes the demand for chip talents more and more tight.
According to the calculation of talent development report of China's integrated circuit industry (2020-2021 Edition), it is expected that by 2023, the demand for talents in the whole industry will reach about 766500, of which the talent gap will reach 200000.
This also means that in the chip industry, the secret war of seizing talents has already begun.
Headhunters and start-ups "produce" Talents
"Other majors are 'people grab jobs', and the chip industry is' work grab people'." As a practitioner, Chi an (a pseudonym) feels particularly obvious.
Before 2020, Chi an was engaged in semiconductor technology abroad. After returning home, he switched to chip related work. In the more than one year of turning to the field of chip design, Chi'an and wechat have more than 60 relevant headhunters, and different headhunters ask him about his intentions almost every day. "During peak hours, for a week in a row, the phone of chip headhunter hasn't been disconnected."
One of his classmates has not updated his resume for a long time because he has no plan to change jobs. Even so, on average, he still receives 1-2 headhunters' calls every week.
"This is a common situation in the chip industry." Jimmy said, "the customer demand has been very large, and we are very nervous to urge us to deliver and recommend people to them." In his team, each headhunter makes about 30 or 40 calls a day on average.
A candidate from a large platform once told Jimmy that he had not updated his resume for five years, but recently he received an average of seven recruitment calls a day, both from headhunters and HR.
This is very different from what happened a few years ago. "Five years ago, there were relatively few opportunities to choose, and basically they would enter the job when they were given an offer (employment notice); now there are 5-8 offers on the talent players. It is the supplier market to compare the salary, platform, team, work content, etc., and it is everywhere that they don't go one day before entering the job." A headhunter said so.
"Because of the shortage of domestic chip talents, it is more chip talent interview companies than chip companies." The CEO of a micro electronics start-up company in Jinjiang shared his talent seeking experience on the social platform:
"In order to meet the chip R & D talents, 8 p.m. is the best time for me to go out. I drive around Zhangjiang and occasionally send a message to the R & D talents, 'I just pass by your company and have a cup of coffee if I'm free.' the R & D talents are very tired from working overtime and don't like to run around. It's OK to go downstairs and have a chat. Or, I drive him home and talk on the way."
The CEO lamented that it is more difficult to find a really suitable chip R & D talent than to find investment. "Just as Lei Jun said, looking for talents is not looking for the cottage three times, but looking for the cottage thirty times."
In 2021, "integrated circuit science and Engineering" was officially upgraded to a first-class discipline, and headhunters also focused on fresh students. Some industry headhunters teased: headhunters in other industries will not dig fresh students, but we will.
"The threshold is indeed gradually relaxed," Jimmy said. Before looking for candidates, they generally need more than three years of work experience, but in the past two years, many fresh students will be poached by headhunters after less than a year.
The market is hot but chaotic, and it is not uncommon for wages to rise by 50%
Digging people means higher wages.
According to the 2022 talent trend report released by Hudson, a talent solutions company, earlier this year, the salary increase in the chip industry will rank first in 2022, more than 50%, followed by a 35% increase in medical and general health.
"The cultivation cycle of chip talents is long and the technology iteration is fast, resulting in a shortage of talents in the market. As long as talents are willing to move, every company can give a very high salary." Song Qian, managing director of hande recruitment business in China, said.
Last year, there was news on the Internet that oppo recruited chip design, chip verification and other positions in Shanghai, and offered fresh students an annual salary of up to 400000.
"Oppo has refreshed the salary record of IC school recruitment." Ziyu (a pseudonym), a digital IC Design practitioner, revealed that the chip design job market in 2021 is "hot + chaotic". "Fresh students generally have an annual salary of 300000, starting with 400000 with two years of work experience and 500000 with three years."
As a result, the "salary upside down" has become the norm in the chip industry, and the average salary of the chip design industry is basically equal to the average salary of the Internet after nearly three years of continuous rise.
"In 2016 and 2017, we found that the salary increase of relevant positions was generally 10% - 20%, and the maximum was no more than 30%. However, in the past two years, the general increase was about 30% - 50%. Startups will offer higher prices in order to recruit talents, with an increase of about 50%." Jimmy said.
This also makes relevant talents flow frequently. According to media statistics, the number of core technicians in 10 companies, including Zhongwei, Dongxin, Juchen, Huafeng measurement and control, Jingke energy, cambrian-u, China Resources micro, xinyuan-u, Fuxin technology and Zhongxin international, decreased compared with the same period last year. Some resigned employees even gave up the generous equity incentive treatment.
"A few years ago, I went to large factories to seek stability, but now there are more opportunities. Many senior people are more willing to join the start-up team." Jimmy said.
"In recent years, many chip companies have been established, and it is difficult to find people with high salaries." Chi an shared an experience of his senior brother's company. When it was not very difficult to get chip talents a few years ago, most of the newcomers recruited by their company were undergraduates who failed in the postgraduate entrance examination and turned to work. In the past two years, the loss of personnel has been more serious. Every year, some undergraduates come in, and at the same time, a group of experienced undergraduates are lost.
The head company is also retaining talents through salary increase. At the end of April this year, TSMC responded by saying that the salary adjustment range of most employees of the company fell to 5% - 10% this year, while last year, it was reported that TSMC increased the salary by 20%. According to agency statistics, the salary adjustment range of lithography equipment ASML has reached 15% - 19% within half a year since July last year.
Personnel demand soared, but more than 80% of graduates changed careers
Although the flow of talents has been maintained for a long time, people in the industry still lament the "huge gap". "Taking test application engineers as an example, the industry needs 30000 test application engineers, but there are less than 3000 at present." Wu Gang, founder and chairman of Hangzhou accelerated technology, once said at a sharing meeting that although the number of semiconductor employees in 2020 has increased by more than 30000 compared with 2019, the talent gap of semiconductor is still 300000 and the talent supply is unbalanced.
On the one hand, the reason is the rapid development of the industry and the soaring demand for personnel.
According to the statistics of China Semiconductor Industry Association, since 2016, the number of IC design enterprises in Chinese Mainland has increased significantly, from 736 in 2015 to 1362 in 2016, and to 1698 in 2018, a year-on-year increase of more than 20%. In 2020, this number will increase to 2218. In 2021 (as of December 1), only chip design enterprises in China have increased by 592 from 2218 in 2020 to 2810, with a year-on-year increase of 26.7%.
Capital has also spawned more start-ups in the field of chips. According to the statistics of semiconductor engineering, the US semiconductor media, in the last month of 2021 alone, a total of 54 start-ups in the semiconductor field worldwide obtained a new round of financing, with a detailed and verifiable financing amount of more than 15 billion yuan, and 40 of the 55 companies that obtained financing were Chinese Enterprises.
Enterprises have sprung up, which will inevitably need a large number of personnel. However, the loss of graduates in the field of integrated circuit in Colleges and universities is quite serious.
According to the data of talent development report of China's integrated circuit industry (2020-2021 Edition), in 2020, the number of graduates related to integrated circuits in China was about 210000, of which only 13.77% of graduates majoring in integrated circuits chose to enter the industry, and more than 80% were changing careers. The main reason is that the product cycle of the semiconductor industry is long and the return rate is not high in the short term. In addition, due to the low salary environment over the years, most college graduates majoring in integrated circuits are more willing to go to the Internet, computer software, it services, real estate and other industries.
"Chip majors in domestic colleges and universities have long been unpopular majors. Graduates have a narrow way out and low treatment, resulting in fewer students. The so-called high salary is only a phenomenon in recent two years, because the rapid expansion of chip demand and capacity expansion have driven the expansion of talent demand." Zhang Xiaorong, President of deep science and Technology Research Institute, told Hongxing capital Bureau.
"The threshold of chip talents is very high. They basically graduate from master's degree. Many of them are still top students in 985 and 211. The background of these groups is very good and there are many choices." Jimmy said that before the ZTE incident, the outside world paid little attention to this industry, and these professionals also turned to the Internet, finance and other fields.
Jimmy believes that a large amount of money flowing into the chip industry has driven the revival of the industry to a certain extent. "A few years ago, the chip industry was at a low ebb. Now we do see some hope. Generally speaking, it is a good thing, but it is hard to say whether it is overheated."
What kind of talents does the chip industry lack
While capital promotes the accelerated development of industries, employees are also worried about whether this is only a "short-term outlet".
"The plate can hold so much capital, but not so many companies. The high salary of migrant workers is bound to be unsustainable." Ziyu believes that the semiconductor tuyere was entirely spawned by the environment at that time. If the general environment changes, policy changes, or new asset light tuyeres appear, IC will inevitably be abandoned by capital.
Ziyu is also worried about the chaotic situation of high salary robbing people, which is a kind of "harm" to newcomers. "Fresh students go to start-ups. Although the salary is high, it is difficult to learn systematically, which is not conducive to technology accumulation and long-term development."
"High salary recruitment has become a disguised hype, which is not sustainable, which is also unfavorable to the healthy development of the semiconductor industry." Major general Ding of industrial economy observer told Red Star capital Bureau.
Talents in the field of chips are a long-term training. Due to the late start of China's integrated circuit industry, the talent training of domestic integrated circuit industry is just in its infancy. It still needs to wait patiently for a few years to obtain a large number of talents.
"College education is too decoupled from the industry. Many majors in electronic information, microelectronics and even integrated circuits in universities are mainly based on materials, and few do real chip design. It is difficult for schools to cultivate chip design talents who can start directly." Chi an said that this also means that it will take years to cultivate a mature chip engineer.
"Chip talents need not quantity, but quality." Some industry experts told the Red Star capital bureau that there is no doubt that there is a shortage of people in the semiconductor industry, but what is lacking is professional and technical personnel with practical work experience, rather than graduates who have just left the school. "Professionals need time to cultivate, and they can't fill the vacancy immediately."
"Enterprises have high requirements for engineering experience. Enterprises hope to work when they come, but such people are the most lacking in this industry." Wu Gang said that the increment of talents can only be trained at this stage. The goal of training should be to meet the needs of enterprises with engineering experience, rather than theoretical talents without engineering experience.
"From design and manufacturing to sealing and testing, there is a talent gap in all links of the chip industry. Among them, the most lacking is high-end talents who have been exposed to advanced equipment and engaged in advanced chip design and production." Zhang Xiaorong said.
"The chip industry chain is very long, involving many links such as design, packaging and manufacturing. It needs many interdisciplinary talents such as materials, mathematics, computer and chemistry. At present, there are still few special integrated circuit majors in Colleges and universities." Major general Ding said that China has a certain foundation in the field of semiconductor chip design and packaging, but high-end chip manufacturing is still a bottleneck field, and talents in the field of equipment and materials related to manufacturing are relatively scarce.
Reporter Wang Tian
Editor Yu Dongmei