This photo, provided by the National Nanofab Center in Daejeon, 164 kilometers south of Seoul, shows a test bed for 12-inch semiconductors.
SEOUL, June 16 (Korea Bizwire) — A majority of businesses struggling with a shortage of semiconductor technicians tend to be small and medium-sized companies that need graduates from high schools or two-year community colleges, rather than large conglomerates, a government survey showed Wednesday.
A survey conducted by the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy and the Korea Institute for Advancement of Technology showed that there was a shortage of 1,621 workers in the chip industry as of 2020.
Sorted by the size of the business, there was a shortage of 1,057 workers at businesses with 10 to 29 employees, 327 workers at businesses with 30 to 99 employees and 79 workers at businesses with 100 to 299 employees, which indicates that 90.3 percent of all staff shortages are concentrated on smaller businesses with fewer than 29 employees.
Larger businesses with 300 to 499 employees had a staff shortage of 33 workers and those with more than 500 employees had a staff shortage of 125 workers.
Rating the percentage of staff shortages, small businesses with 10 to 29 employees had the highest percentage at 11.3 percent, indicating that they had only eight employees even though they needed nine.
Over the last five years, small businesses with 10 to 29 employees saw an increasing number of positions remain unfilled, from 612 in 2016 to 1,057 in 2020, with the shortage rate rising from 7.9 percent to 11.3 percent.
Over the same period, large businesses with more than 500 employees saw a reduced number of unfilled positions from 282 to 125 workers, as well as a shortage rate that dropped from 0.5 percent to 0.2 percent, indicating that smaller businesses are more likely to suffer from staff shortages.
Kevin Lee (kevinlee@koreabizwire.com)
