The talent shortage has become a common problem in the global semiconductor industry. In the semiconductor ecosystem in Taiwan, the imbalance between men and women is even more serious. According to Digitimes, in order to encourage more women, especially students, to join the industry, Taiwan’s leading semiconductor companies and academia have taken a series of measures.
The MediaTek Foundation has launched the “Girls! Technology Action” project and recently invited 40 female college students from Taiwan to visit its Hsinchu headquarters. These students had lunch with Cai Mingjie, chairman of MediaTek, and discussed career planning with him. Nearly 40 percent of the students are majoring in literature, law or business management, and many of them are self-taught or take programming courses, said Lin Shujuan, MediaTek’s senior vice president and director of human resources. She said that these female students are full of ambitions to explore jobs in the technology field, and are not limited by their majors.
It is noticed that Cai Mingjie has repeatedly stated publicly that the field of integrated circuit design requires a lot of manpower and provides a better working environment and salary than labor-intensive work. He also said that young female talent is welcome to join the industry.
In addition, it is reported that TSMC is also targeting several top girls’ high schools in Taiwan to attract more female students into the science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) fields. Scholars say women possess some qualities that are critical to technological development, including being attentive, empathetic, and better at handling complex tasks. If more female talents join the industry, the bottlenecks and restrictions faced by Taiwan’s technology industry will hopefully be eased.
An increase in female workers in the semiconductor industry will expand the talent pool and help balance the gender ratio. In addition, gender equality is also an important indicator for evaluating corporate ESG (environmental, social and governance).
