Job-hopping salary increase of 50%? Within a year, 10 chip company experts left, and the talent war began

Abstract: With the emergence of the "chip famine", the semiconductor industry has entered an unprecedented outlet, and the demand for chips has also been transformed into the demand for chip talents.

With the emergence of the "chip famine", the semiconductor industry has entered an unprecedented outlet, and the demand for chips has also been transformed into the demand for chip talents.

Most chip listed companies in 2021 revenue growth at the same time, trying to retain technical personnel through equity and other ways, but this still can not stop the trend of "loss" of talent. According to the statistics of Shell Financial Reporter, in the past year, 10 listed companies in the semiconductor industry, including SMIC, Zhongwei Company, and Cambrian, have experienced a decrease in the number of core technical personnel.

"Probably from 2019 onwards, the demand for talents in the domestic chip industry has increased significantly, and the salaries of fresh graduates of large factories have approached the Internet industry last year and this year, which is equivalent to doubling, but the positions are basically concentrated in the design, verification, layout or DFT (testability technology) and other design front and back ends." In contrast, the treatment of manufacturing packaging and testing is far from the same, which is related to the industrial structure of continental semiconductors and the working environment of FAB (foundry). On April 22, chip engineer, B station UP main talk three circles in an interview with Shell financial reporter said.

While the chip industry is on the cusp, how can enterprises solve the talent crisis?

The number of core technical personnel of 10 semiconductor listed companies decreased

On April 21, the Beijing News Shell financial reporter counted the changes in the number of core technical personnel within one year of 126 listed companies subdivided into the "semiconductor" category through the data extracted by Wind, and found that the number of core technical personnel of 10 companies, including Zhongwei Company, Dongxin Shares, Juchen Shares, Huafeng Measurement and Control, JinkoSolar, Cambrian-U, China Resources Micro, VeriSilicon Shares-U, Fuxin Technology and SMIC, decreased compared with the same period last year.

Among them, the core technical personnel of Zhongwei Company and China Resources Micro have been reduced by 3, and the remaining companies have only reduced by 1. In particular, the number of core technical personnel in Zhongwei Company, the original 6 core technical personnel, as of April 21, only 3 people remained, halving the number.

Shell financial reporters noted that some departing employees gave up generous equity incentives.

For example, on July 4, 2021, Wu Jingang, a core technician and vice president of technology research and development who has worked at SMIC for 20 years, applied for resignation from relevant positions and completed the resignation procedures for personal reasons. According to the list of some incentive recipients granted for the first time in the latest equity incentive plan released by SMIC on May 20, 2021, Wu Jingang, as one of the company's core technical personnel, obtained 160,000 restricted shares, and according to the stock price of SMIC at the time of the announcement of 58.13 yuan per share, the market value of this part of the stock was nearly 9.3 million yuan.

The most recent personnel change came from Cambrian: On March 15, Cambrian issued an announcement saying that Liang Jun, a core technical officer, had notified the company to terminate the labor contract because of "differences with the company". On the day of the announcement, Cambrian's stock price fell by 18.38% in response, and the company's market value evaporated by nearly 6 billion yuan in one day. In this regard, Cambrian related people said in response to the media that the difference between Liang Jun and Cambrian is that "the company hopes to focus on the wide landing of products and seize the opportunity period, while Liang Jun hopes to invest more in technology and research." ”

Jiang Han, a senior researcher at Pangu Think Tank, believes that the departure of core technical personnel of listed companies is a normal phenomenon. In particular, the departure of core technical personnel of listed companies on the Science and Technology Innovation Board is mainly due to the strong competitiveness of the industry, and the competition for talents for core technical personnel has led to greater mobility in the industry. Causing core technical personnel to abandon equity incentives is the result of many reasons, and different people have different views on equity incentives. On the one hand, it may be that the next company where the core technical personnel jump ship is willing to pay higher salaries to cover the part of their losses, on the other hand, it may also be that the core technical personnel think that they have little hope of getting the remaining part of the equity incentive, so they simply give up.

Shell financial reporter found that many listed companies have paid a lot of money to attract and retain talents, such as Cambrian said in the 2021 annual report, "In order to attract and retain outstanding talents, the company through the implementation of the "2021 Restricted Stock Incentive Plan" to 641 incentive recipients who meet the grant conditions to grant 7.2 million shares of restricted stock." Compared with the equity incentive implemented in 2020, the incentive plan covers a wider area and the number of incentive shares is more sufficient, effectively bundling the vital interests of employees with the development of the company. ”

SMIC said in its 2021 annual report that it has implemented a number of incentives for outstanding talents, including equity incentives, which have played a positive role in stabilizing and attracting technical talents. He also said, "In recent years, the number of integrated circuit enterprises has grown rapidly, and there has been a large gap in the supply of outstanding technical talents in the industry, and the competition for talents has become increasingly fierce." If the company has a large number of outstanding technical research and development talents to leave, and the company can not recruit experienced technical personnel in the short term, it may affect the progress of the company's process research and development, and adversely affect the company's continuous competitiveness. ”

Job-hopping into a trend, capital hot money to create a "semiconductor outlet"

However, when various chip companies actively retain talents, high-end chip talents do not have to worry about unemployment, and sometimes leaving their jobs means higher salaries.

According to the "2022 Talent Trend Report" released by hudson, the top positions leading the salary increase list in 2022 are smart car chips and advanced semiconductor chip research and development, with an increase of more than 50%. Song Qian, managing director of Hudson's recruitment business in China, publicly stated when interpreting the talent trend that talents in the chip industry "as long as they are willing to move, each pit (company) can recruit people at a very high price, and the average salary increase is about 50%. ”

In the previous ten years, because the Internet was in the outlet, many fresh graduates of chip-related majors rarely chose to enter the chip industry after graduation, but flowed to Internet companies with higher salaries and treatment, and some people in the chip circle even quipped that "dry semiconductors are not as good as dry Internet, and dry hardware is not as good as dry software."

"The income of the chip industry is not high, so in the past few years, all those who studied this major have graduated and turned to the Internet." In addition, in the manufacturing plant, the corresponding salary of each post and grade is stipulated. The same position and the same grade of different companies in the industry will not be too different. The annual salary increase, while varied according to the KPI, would not be a 5% and a 35% difference. Netizen "Diving Storm" said.

Wu Gang, founder and chairman of Hangzhou Acceleration Technology, said at the inaugural meeting of the first semiconductor industry summit and core think tank, "Taking test application engineers as an example, the industry needs 30,000 test application engineers, but at present there are not even 3,000 people. ”

In the view of the three circles, due to strong demand and national strategy and other reasons, the heat of semiconductors in recent years is indeed unprecedentedly high, coupled with the recent slight cold in the Internet industry, some capital hot money began to flow to semiconductors, and finally caused the so-called "semiconductor outlet" now.

"In recent years, my most intuitive feeling is that more and more people in this major are willing to stay in the chip industry to do the right work, rather than trying to transcode algorithms like many excellent people in the past, and going to Internet factories to make money and stocks." If the Internet industry continues to be tight, there will be people who will reverse the operation and turn the semiconductor track. "Talk three times and say.

Why is there a shortage of chip talents? The demand is high and the graduates are insufficient

Shell financial reporter learned that compared with the chip companies that have been actively expanding in recent years to deal with insufficient chip production capacity, the talent reserves of the chip industry, especially the number of students in related majors, are seriously insufficient.

"How many of the 8 million Ph.D. graduates really enter the integrated circuit industry every year?" 30,000 people. If the current gap is 300,000 people, soon this gap will be even larger. Previously, Xu Wei, secretary general of the Shanghai Integrated Circuit Industry Association, spoke at the World Semiconductor Conference.

It is worth noting that the entry threshold of the chip industry is very high, and for some technology research and development positions, the academic qualifications are from the master's degree. Taking the micro and medium-sized company as an example, the 2021 annual report shows that the company has 89 doctors, 249 masters, 496 undergraduates, and 214 junior colleges and below, of which master's degree or above accounts for 32% of all employees, and bachelor's degree or above accounts for 80% of all employees, which also invisibly lengthens the cycle of talent training and narrows the scope of talent selection.

In addition, the talent training cycle of the chip industry in colleges and universities is also relatively long, due to the expensive related equipment of the chip industry, many fields also involve confidentiality issues, it is difficult for students to obtain enough opportunities for practice, and the chip industry is capital-intensive, and it takes several years for fresh graduates to formally enter the workplace, generally need to go through 4 or 5 chip project cycles, each cycle of half a year to two years, after which it can begin to "stand alone", and it will take several years to enter a higher technical level.

In Wu Gang's view, there are many reasons for the shortage of talents in the chip industry, and there are five aspects in the general direction: one is the lack of a talent standard system truly recognized by the semiconductor industry, and the other is the lack of a productive training environment that cultivates engineering practical experience, such as semiconductor manufacturing, it is unrealistic for schools to build a fab, corresponding to other fields, testing, equipment, etc., many schools have no way to establish laboratories; third, there is a lack of competition platform channels for selecting outstanding innovative industry talents Fourth, there is a lack of collaborative education platforms for industrial employment and education; fifth, there is a lack of corresponding effective and sustainable talent training activities.

"In the eyes of many people, chips are high-tech industries with three high levels of technology, capital and talents, but in the final analysis, it is a very mature manufacturing industry, and it is impossible to let many employees take off quickly like the Internet at that time." Remind the small partners in school, the outlet only determines the starting salary, the wind will always stop, and when the capital and tide disperse, only the factory that can make products can develop and grow, and only people with solid technology can stand firm. Talk about three circles said.

Wu Gang believes that it is necessary to vigorously develop the vocational education of integrated circuits in order to solve the problem of shortage of chip talents, "for example, now the state has upgraded integrated circuit science and engineering to a first-level discipline, and in the past, integrated circuits were disciplines under the major of electronic science and technology, and now after being commissioned as a first-level discipline, many colleges and universities have carried out corresponding courses, and even many higher occupations are also carrying out related courses." In addition, in recent years, the state has invested heavily in vocational education, which can bring us a lot of talents, if we can cultivate talents, the future will have great benefits for the entire industry. ”

Beijing News shell financial reporter Luo Yidan Editor Xu Chao Proofreader Lu Qian