Need policy to attract overseas semiconductor industry human resources

In the next 5 years, Vietnam's semiconductor industry needs 50,000 engineers, of which Ho Chi Minh City accounts for 80%, but training cannot keep up, so there must be a policy to attract them from abroad, according to Dr. Tran Du Lich.

The content was presented by Dr. Tran Du Lich at the scientific conference on restructuring the city's industry organized by the Ho Chi Minh City Institute for Development Studies and the Department of Industry and Trade on October 11.

Dr. Tran Du Lich speaks at the conference on October 11. Photo: An Phuong — Dr. Tran Du Lich speaks at the conference on October 11. Photo: *An Phuong*

Vietnam is considered a potential market for the chip and semiconductor component manufacturing industry. According to research firm Technavio, the semiconductor market in Vietnam is expected to increase by 1.65 billion USD in the period 2021-2025, with a growth rate of about 6.5% per year. In recent years, a number of large corporations in the world have invested in semiconductor chip production in Vietnam such as Intel, Samsung, Synopsys. Domestic enterprises have begun to participate in research and production of chips to serve domestic needs and aim for export such as FPT, Viettel.

Although semiconductor factories in Vietnam have grown strongly and attracted foreign investment in recent times, the biggest barrier facing the industry today is the lack of skilled labor.

According to Dr. Lich, in the next 5 years, Vietnam's semiconductor industry will need about 50,000 engineers, of which Ho Chi Minh City alone will need 40,000 people. This means that the whole country needs 10,000 people each year, but domestic human resources can only meet 20%.

"If training is not enough, where will the resources come from?", Dr. Tran Du Lich asked. According to him, to solve this problem, there needs to be a policy to attract available human resources from other places to the city.

Sharing the same view, Mr. Nguyen Anh Thi, Head of the Management Board of Ho Chi Minh City High-Tech Park, said that for many years, considering the scale of the country, the city has always been a place to attract talent. "We need to expand and have policies to attract talented people from all over the world to work in the city," Mr. Thi said.

According to Mr. Thi, in the semiconductor industry, the main problem is human resources. Therefore, the city needs to have a policy to attract engineers in the industry, including foreigners and Vietnamese working abroad, to return home. The city can exempt them from 50-100% personal income tax for at least the first 5 years.

Vietnamese engineers working at Intel Products factory. Photo: IPV — Vietnamese engineers working at Intel Products factory. Photo: *IPV*

Dr. Lich believes that the city is currently facing a great opportunity to attract "eagles in the semiconductor and microchip design industries". "Many experts say that the city is like a very attractive hot cake, but if not done properly, the cake will get cold and the opportunity will be lost", Mr. Lich said.

According to experts, the city needs to have appropriate policies to attract investors. When high-tech industries come to the city in sufficient numbers, labor-intensive and land-intensive industries will automatically be replaced. At that time, the problems of land shortage and high land rents will no longer be problems when attracting investment to the city.

Vietnam is considered to have a rapidly developing semiconductor ecosystem, with the potential to improve its position in the global supply chain. According to statistics in February from the US Census Bureau, chip revenue from Vietnam imported into the US market increased by 74.9%, from 321.7 million USD in February 2022 to 562.5 million USD after one year, accounting for 11.6% of the market share.

Playing an important role in the global semiconductor industry, Vietnam mainly focuses on assembly, testing and packaging. According to semiconductor human resources experts, this is a challenge for Vietnam in increasing the value in the chip supply chain. Currently, Vietnam's engineering team is only about 5,000 people, considered very small compared to this hundred billion USD market.

Le Tuyet

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