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Will young Americans want to work in semiconductor manufacturing? [video]

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Re: Will young Americans want to work in semiconductor manufacturing? [video]

#101

Post by splistud »

xwdv wrote: post #100
tristor wrote: post #63

I have worked with a lot of people that escaped from fab jobs here in the US during my career. The biggest issue I see is that manufacturing has an absolutely grueling schedule and the pay is half or less than what equivalent level software jobs pay, with worse working conditions. If you want young Americans to work these jobs, you need to pay /more/ than software jobs, because the conditions are worse. Otherwise, yo…

A lot of people cannot escape. And it often surprises me how many people really don’t want to work in software.

No post body was provided.

Re: Will young Americans want to work in semiconductor manufacturing? [video]

#102

Post by smnrchrds »

tristor wrote: post #63

I have worked with a lot of people that escaped from fab jobs here in the US during my career. The biggest issue I see is that manufacturing has an absolutely grueling schedule and the pay is half or less than what equivalent level software jobs pay, with worse working conditions. If you want young Americans to work these jobs, you need to pay /more/ than software jobs, because the conditions are worse. Otherwise, yo…

> pay is half or less than what equivalent level software jobs pay, with worse working conditions

You can say this part about basically any job and it would be true. Tech salaries and work conditions are ridiculously good, compared to any almost other job in the US and any other country than the US. Even other STEM jobs (e.g. civil or mechanical engineering) tend to have less than half the pay and much worse benefits and work conditions compared to software.

Re: Will young Americans want to work in semiconductor manufacturing? [video]

#103

Post by splistud »

KingMachiavelli wrote: post #31

A substantial perk would be subsidized housing. A modern fab can cost ~$20B (maybe more in the US) and obviously the planning and permit process is likely also a couple order of magnitudes more difficult than normal real estate development. Spending ~$100M on employee housing would make the compensation a lot more competitive since software salaries are high but tend to be located in HCOL areas. Spend another ~$100M…

Pay people, don't try to fit some other benefit on all employees

Re: Will young Americans want to work in semiconductor manufacturing? [video]

#104

Post by snerbles »

xwdv wrote: post #100
tristor wrote: post #63

I have worked with a lot of people that escaped from fab jobs here in the US during my career. The biggest issue I see is that manufacturing has an absolutely grueling schedule and the pay is half or less than what equivalent level software jobs pay, with worse working conditions. If you want young Americans to work these jobs, you need to pay /more/ than software jobs, because the conditions are worse. Otherwise, yo…

A lot of people cannot escape. And it often surprises me how many people really don’t want to work in software.

Growing up playing with BASIC on an old DOS machine, in my childhood solipsism I had this notion that everyone would love writing code as much as I do and it would be nothing special.

In the decades since I've come to believe that actually liking working on software requires a certain sort of...personality that most people just don't have.

Re: Will young Americans want to work in semiconductor manufacturing? [video]

#105

Post by the_only_law »

droidist2 wrote: post #99
the_only_law wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wasn’t there a documentary about this or something? I swear I’ve seen this premise play out somewhere.

Maybe American Factory (2019) or Gung Ho (1986). The latter isn't a documentary though.

I think the former was it. I only caught clips of it, but the previous comment basically summed up what I saw.

Re: Will young Americans want to work in semiconductor manufacturing? [video]

#106

Post by bcatanzaro »

snerbles wrote: post #104
xwdv wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of people cannot escape. And it often surprises me how many people really don’t want to work in software.

Growing up playing with BASIC on an old DOS machine, in my childhood solipsism I had this notion that everyone would love writing code as much as I do and it would be nothing special. In the decades since I've come to believe that actually liking working on software requires a certain sort of...personality that most people just don't have.

That's exactly how I felt. As a kid, I actually planned on a different career in something less fun like chemistry or biology because I thought there's no way people would pay me to write software. Thankfully people informed me I was wrong.

Re: Will young Americans want to work in semiconductor manufacturing? [video]

#107

Post by TylerE »

rcarr wrote: post #52
graton wrote: post #42

Tangentially related is the lack of young people entering the "trades" (plumbing, electrical, construction, etc). Can't help but think that now is probably a good time to enter a "trade" due to the lack of people who are doing that.

Everyone I know who got an apprenticeship after school instead of going to uni are absolutely raking it in and have enjoyed a significantly better quality of life than their uni going peers. I personally can’t see how the uni goers will end up having a better time in the long run as the official narrative goes. The majority of the tradies seem to end up buying multiple houses and going the landlord route for early re…

Ask them about their back and knees when they’re 50.

Re: Will young Americans want to work in semiconductor manufacturing? [video]

#108

Post by trasz »

abdullah2993 wrote: post #76

What a wonderful solution. Lets pay software engineers less so they are forced to work on hardware. Why not just have higher pays for semiconductor people since they are crucial?

Because hardware business is based on real economy, instead of just pretending to be doing something useful to siphon investors money.

Re: Will young Americans want to work in semiconductor manufacturing? [video]

#109

Post by logicchains »

JimmieMcnulty wrote: post #14

Honestly, based on the content of this video and the replies from the prior HN thread, it seems like folks are locked into the belief that the current manufacturing... "experience" (for lack of a better term) for the workers involved will be lifted from Asia and dropped into the US, but that doesn't actually make any sense to me. Sure, that's how the world knows how to make chips now, but given the varying laws betwe…

>As an outsider, it seems pretty clear that the rejection to the industry is more about the cultural mismatch than it is to the actual work needing to be executed.

Look at Intel. It's a western company, but it famously fell behind its competitors due to offering comparatively shit pay and conditions to its staff, so the best people left. The problem is hardware company culture, not Asian company culture.

Apple's M1 is an example of what a company that compensates its staff fairly can achieve in hardware. Hardware companies need to get the idea out of their head that they can pay people shit (even when they've got huge monopoly profits like Intel had) and still expect to remain competitive.

Re: Will young Americans want to work in semiconductor manufacturing? [video]

#110

Post by nightski »

logicchains wrote: post #109
JimmieMcnulty wrote: post #14

Honestly, based on the content of this video and the replies from the prior HN thread, it seems like folks are locked into the belief that the current manufacturing... "experience" (for lack of a better term) for the workers involved will be lifted from Asia and dropped into the US, but that doesn't actually make any sense to me. Sure, that's how the world knows how to make chips now, but given the varying laws betwe…

>As an outsider, it seems pretty clear that the rejection to the industry is more about the cultural mismatch than it is to the actual work needing to be executed. Look at Intel. It's a western company, but it famously fell behind its competitors due to offering comparatively shit pay and conditions to its staff, so the best people left. The problem is hardware company culture, not Asian company culture. Apple's M1 i…

Isn't M1 manufactured by TSMC? Are you saying TSMC has good pay and treats it's workers great? (it might I honestly don't know).
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