TSMC Employees Experiencing Problems in Arizona

[T0@st]

TSMC is having a tough time establishing itself in the United States with new manufacturing facilities - the Taiwanese multinational semiconductor contract manufacturing and design company is putting a great deal of effort into finishing its new Arizona foundry, located in the greater Phoenix area. A minor fire incident occurred at one of their construction sites in late April, and North American news outlets last week reported on the company's struggle to recruit enough staff - approximately 4500 positions - for its upcoming Arizona plants. Current and former employees of TSMC in the U.S. have taken to the Glassdoor review website - user feedback has so far awarded the company a 27% approval rating via 91 submissions, thus warning potential candidates to stay away. Apparently American staffers have found it difficult to adjust to TSMC's corporate culture, and the company could face further challenges when transferring staff from Taiwan.

The latest news from Arizona points to problems encountered at the so-called "TSMC Village" - actually two residential locations divided into "A" and "B" categories. Taiwan's Economic Daily released a video report late last month covering crime-related incidents - this information has since been picked up by Western news outlets. Perpetrators have targeted houses and cars within these new build communities - UDN's footage indicates that seven vehicles located in Village A were damaged with a portion of them broken into. A single Village B property was accessed by possible squatters, and an unspecified number of TSMC engineers have been "robbed" throughout May. Several residents were contacted by UDN - interviewees expressed frustrations with the lack of security in the area, and blamed a local management company for not bolstering prevention measures.



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[TheinsanegamerN]

American employees expect to be treated like humans and not cattle, something Taiwanese companies have repeatedly failed to understand. We are not bugs, we will not be worked to death.

reminder that FOXCONN, the company with the suicide nets, was also a Taiwanese company. FOXCONN also struggled to find people stateside. Funny that….

 

[KrazyT]

Perpetrators have targeted houses and cars within these new build communities

Seems they don't like Toyota's Camry (is it ?)
It's really denote that's something goes wrong theses days in the world ... :/

 

[Dragokar]

American employees expect to be treated like humans and not cattle, something Taiwanese companies have repeatedly failed to understand. We are not bugs, we will not be worked to death.

reminder that FOXCONN, the company with the suicide nets, was also a Taiwanese company.

That's why you work with no health insurance, no sick days, or even worse at Gamestop or other Retailers that treat employees as crap..........the american work culture is flawed and only the top % are making a good deal out of it.

 

[MDWiley]

Whenever I hear stories like this, I immediately think it’s because the job and pay sucks but the company stubbornly refuses to improve things. Ffs just treat your employees better and pay them well. How hard is that, truly?

 

[TheEndIsNear]

That's why you work with no health insurance, no sick days, or even worse at Gamestop or other Retailers that treat employees as crap..........the american work culture is flawed and only the top % are making a good deal out of it.

Our country sucks no doubt but to treat your employees like they do I might sell my stock because I have a conscience and money is shit.

 

[Deleted member 231663]

That's why you work with no health insurance, no sick days, or even worse at Gamestop or other Retailers that treat employees as crap..........the american work culture is flawed and only the top % are making a good deal out of it.

Says the guy who lives in a country the size of the state of Montana

K thanks goodbye.

 

[R0H1T]

reminder that FOXCONN, the company with the suicide nets, was also a Taiwanese company. FOXCONN also struggled to find people stateside.

Maybe if the likes of Apple, Nvidia, AMD & in the last few decades Intel left more than peanuts for the rest of the supply chain to live on you wouldn't have to make them work like sheep

This also applies to TSMC btw as well as any top company in the world.

Oh noes but my share price, my profits

 

[AnotherReader]

Says the guy who lives in a country the size of the state of Montana

What does the size of a country have to do with its quality of life? The USA is enormous; it's a given that most countries would be smaller than it.

 

[ir_cow]

Americans complaining is nothing new. Get me 100k and I'll move. I think the main problem is it's in Arizona. Ever play Fallout? Thats basically the same.

 

[Dave65]

The dumb-ing down of Americans is real.

 

[Deleted member 229121]

Without more detail a lot of this is speculative.

Cultural differences? Totally feasible.
Draconian business practices? Ditto.
Less than desirable applicants? Yep definitely that one too.

That's why you work with no health insurance, no sick days, or even worse at Gamestop or other Retailers that treat employees as crap..........the american work culture is flawed and only the top % are making a good deal out of it.

The wealthiest benefit the most here that is true (and wrong fundamentally).
However we most certainly have healthcare and personal time off; what provider and how much depends on your employer and what they can offer (along w/ Federal+State regulatory).

Vacation time is something we have MUCH less of though overall compared to those in the EU.
Conversely I think the amount of vacation time there is excessive; somewhere in between the two would be good here.

I'll toss you another win on universal child care, it is just insane what that costs in our country.

What does the size of a country have to do with its quality of life? The USA is enormous; it's a given that most countries would be smaller than it.

Running a country involves logistics to implement the the political ideologies which drive them. So it has everything to do with it.

 

[95Viper]

Stop the country bashing and discuss the topic civilly.
Stop the insults.
Follow the Guidelines for posting!

 

[AnotherReader]

Running a country involves logistics to implement the the political ideologies which drive them. So it has everything to do with it.

It's a good excuse because there are very few countries of comparable size. It still doesn't preclude the higher density states from matching other rich countries, e.g. Germany or Sweden.

 

[Denver]

American employees expect to be treated like humans and not cattle, something Taiwanese companies have repeatedly failed to understand. We are not bugs, we will not be worked to death.

reminder that FOXCONN, the company with the suicide nets, was also a Taiwanese company. FOXCONN also struggled to find people stateside. Funny that….

The Taiwanese are arguably more efficient. Period.

 

[Leiesoldat]

Never understood why TSMC chose Arizona for a fabrication facility that requires copious amounts of water for cooling. They would have been better served to move east of the Mississippi to a state like Kentucky, Tennessee (eastern portion of the state), or Georgia where we have to discharge billions of cubic feet of water each day from all the lakes that have dams.

 

[AnotherReader]

Never understood why TSMC chose Arizona for a fabrication facility that requires copious amounts of water for cooling. They would have been better served to move east of the Mississippi to a state like Kentucky, Tennessee (eastern portion of the state), or Georgia where we have to discharge billions of cubic feet of water each day from all the lakes that have dams.

ArsTechnica covered this a while back. Intel's historic presence means that there's existing talent, and the risk of natural disasters is low. Still, New York has a trained workforce due to IBM and GlobalFoundries too. Then there's this comment by Voiddancer on that article:

As somebody who helped build out Intel's FAB 12 and FAB 12E at the Ocotillo campus in the 90's, let me state it's also because the City of Chandler, AZ offered tech companies Free Trade Zone status back then (and still likely now.) No taxes on any sales of items manufactured there and exported out of the US. It's why we also had Intel's massive Chandler campus with FAB 6, Northrup-Grumman, Orbital Sciences, Microchip, and so on there near us.

 

[evernessince]

The Taiwanese are arguably more efficient. Period.

 

[TheinsanegamerN]

The Taiwanese are arguably more efficient. Period.

Working 14 hour days and being virtual slaves to a corporation do not make you more efficient. The lengths people will go to defend multi billion dollar enterprises never ceases to amaze me.

TSMC abuses their workers. Period.

Remember the news articles of TSMC workers being locked in factories, not allowed to go home because COVID?

 

[the54thvoid]

View attachment 299614

I had to do some Googling. Ireland are top not because of productivity but because of the huge number of multi-nationals there on the tax incentives (the income grossly inflates perceived value of individual work). The actual 'workforce' productivity isn't reflected in this statistic. And if one result is not accurate, then the rest are subject to similar doubt.

Regardless, this has little to do with the news piece (of non-tech nonsense).

 

[Denver]

View attachment 299614

Do you seriously think that 100 dollars has the same purchasing power in taiwan and the US? I would say that in the US the purchasing power drops to 1/4 or less, houses that are not worth 200-300k USD are sold for millions. Everything is much more expensive.

I was referring to efficiency, from the point of view of salary paid vs result, in the US employees will be paid twice as much to have the same standard of living as Taiwanese employees receiving less.

 

[evernessince]

ArsTechnica covered this a while back. Intel's historic presence means that there's existing talent, and the risk of natural disasters is low. Still, New York has a trained workforce due to IBM and GlobalFoundries too. Then there's this comment by Voiddancer on that article:

Let's be honest 95% of the reason is taxes. If they are saving 10 billion / year in taxes, they can easily pay to relocate people and for any resources they need.

There's a bigger downside to giving a corporation a pass on taxes, in that the people of that state themselves foot the bill for that company. Not just in the upfront subsidies but also the infrastructure cost. Roads, schools, police, if a company isn't paying into those everyone else has to pay more to cover the free loader. All for this company to attract more wealthy residents who will likely drive up housing prices and drive local residents out. All the while both the company and new residents push for even further tax benefits specifically for themselves and further place the burden of taxes on your average joe.

IMO what's been explained in the article seems logical given what's happening / going to happen.

I had to do some Googling. Ireland are top not because of productivity but because of the huge number of multi-nationals there on the tax incentives (the income grossly inflates perceived value of individual work). The actual 'workforce' productivity isn't reflected in this statistic. And if one result is not accurate, yhen the rest are subject to similar doubt.

Regardless, this has little to do with the news piece (of non-tech nonsense).

You are conflating something being inaccurate with you disagreeing with how's it's measured. Yes, given the current methodology Ireland is over-represented but I don't see how that suddenly makes the rest of the data irrelevant.

The chart was provided by Our Workd in Data, which is partnered with the worlds biggest Universities: https://ourworldindata.org/about

This information is used on most websites including wikipedia. I would say there is significant credibility behind it.

Do you seriously think that 100 dollars has the same purchasing power in taiwan and the US? I would say that in the US the purchasing power drops to 1/4 or less, houses that are not worth 200-300k USD are sold for millions. Everything is much more expensive.

I was referring to efficiency, from the point of view of salary paid vs result, in the US employees will be paid twice as much to have the same standard of living as Taiwanese employees receiving less.

Your argument was that Taiwan was more efficient, not that they can stretch their income further. Mind you the chart I linked has nothing to do with income or the purchasing power of said income, it's merely the amount of GDP produced per working hour. It's not the actual amount people take home in the US. The vast majority of the fruits of labor in the US go increasingly to the 1%, hence why the median wage is a mere 17.02 or barley enough to support just yourself (in most states) with a 40 hour work week.

Just for reference Taiwan has a cost of living index of 54.2 while the US is at 72.4 so it would be inaccurate to say that purchasing power drops to 1/4 or less when it doesn't reach even 1/2 or less. Living in Taiwan on average costs 74% as much as living in the US.

 

[R-T-B]

American employees expect to be treated like humans and not cattle, something Taiwanese companies have repeatedly failed to understand. We are not bugs, we will not be worked to death.

reminder that FOXCONN, the company with the suicide nets, was also a Taiwanese company. FOXCONN also struggled to find people stateside. Funny that….

You didn't read the part where the taiwanese engineers are finding Arizona crime unbearable, did you?

 

[Why_Me]

You didn't read the part where the taiwanese engineers are finding Arizona crime unbearable, did you?

Not surprised in the least. Just look at who runs Phoenix starting with their mayor.

 

[Dragokar]

Our country sucks no doubt but to treat your employees like they do I might sell my stock because I have a conscience and money is shit.

It cant be that bad to work for TSMC in the Staates, especially in that branch. You also always have a choice.

Says the guy who lives in a country the size of the state of Montana

K thanks goodbye.

So you dislike Montana and have size issues?

Without more detail a lot of this speculative.

Cultural differences? Totally feasible.
Draconian business practices? Ditto.
Less than desirable applicants? Yep definitely that one too.



The wealthiest benefit the most here that is true (and wrong fundamentally).
However we most certainly have healthcare and personal time off; what provider and how much depends on your employer and what they can offer (along w/ Federal+State regulatory).

Vacation time is something we have MUCH less of though overall compared to those in the EU.
Conversely I think the amount of vacation time there is excessive; somewhere in between the two would be good here.

I'll toss you another win on universal child care, it is just insane what that costs in our country.



Running a country involves logistics to implement the the political ideologies which drive them. So it has everything to do with it.

Really good post, I like it.

Also in general, why so many get so instantly mega mad If someone disagrees and does have another point of view? That is not that smart If you want to achieve any real conversation/communication.

*Edit*

Arizona probably just had the best tax benefits....