High-tech firms in search for qualified researchers

Despite a slight uptick in the nation's March unemployment rate, high-tech companies yesterday said that they are rolling out the red carpet for new R&D talent.

"We're very optimistic about the economic turnaround since our sales have increased by 30 percent in the first quarter alone," said Rudolf Chen (陳哲彥), manager of recruiting and staffing at Benq Corp's (明電) human resources division.

Taiwan's top mobile-phone maker forecasts a 40 percent growth in revenue this year with an NT$4.4 earning per share, compared with an EPS of NT$2.2 last year.

Benq is planning to hire 400 people this year, doubling the company's postings last year, to increase its staff to 1,800, Chen said. With a job orientation coming up on Saturday, 75 percent of the company's recruitment this year will focus on R&D talent, Chen said.

According to local monthly magazine Career (就業情報), the high-tech industry is expected to create a total of some 18,000 jobs by the year's end -- including 3,200 jobs from Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (台積電), 1,300 jobs from AU Optronics Corp (友達光電), 1,000 from United Microelectronics Corp (UMC, 聯電) and 400 from Hon Hai Precision Industries Co (鴻海精密).

Rocky Yang (楊基寬), general manager of the 104 Job Bank Corp (104人力銀行), said that information technology-related industries and the service sector will produce the most new jobs this year.

"An estimated 85,000 jobs will be generated from the two sectors, keeping this year's unemployment rate fluctuating around 5 percent," Yang said, adding that traditional manufacturing is producing fewer new jobs than before.

Hon Hai will be focused on recruiting talent in the 3C (consumer electronics, computers and communications) and logistics sectors and will conduct in-house training to upgrade staff skills, company spokesman Edmund Ding (丁祈安) said.

Hon Hai, which forecasts that its profit will rise by at least 15 percent in each of the next three years, is aiming to upgrade itself from an electronics-component maker to a bare-bones computer-system manufacturer within the next three to five years, Ding said.

With more demand for R&D talent, Taiwan's work force needs to upgrade its skills and education. A human resource manager at Quanta Computer Inc (廣達電腦), who refused to be identified, said that the company receives more than 1,000 resumes from job seekers per week, but 60 percent of them are not qualified.

"Facing a limited pool of R&D talent, we are offering special recruitment packages, including stock options," he said.

Expecting sales to increase 51 percent to US$5 billion this year, Taiwan's largest notebook computer maker has budgeted NT$2 million to recruit more than 100 R&D specialists this year in an effort to enhance its wireless-Internet capabilities, the manager said.