Despite the nation's efforts to boost its high tech industries as pillars of future economic development, the shortage of quality manpower, however, remains a problem for the industry, according to a survey released yesterday.
The combined shortage of skilled workers in research and development (R&D) and engineering for six major high-tech industries, including semiconductor, flat panel display, communications and biotech, is estimated to amount to over 20,000 people in the next three years, the poll indicated.
The poll was jointly conducted by the Industrial Technology Research Institute, Institute for Information Technology and Development Center for Biotechnology between July and November last year.
"We think the fast-growing flat panel display industry would face the largest shortage gap among the industries that we surveyed," Hsu Chiung-wen (
The output value of nation's flat panel display industry, which consists of flat panel and relevant key components manufacturing, is expected to grow to NT$942.2 billion (US$29.86 billion) this year from NT$642.6 billion last year, according to IEK's figures.
Meanwhile, the supply of quality R&D and engineering manpower remains far behind the market demand.
"The supply can only fulfill around 70 percent of the industry's demand for around 5,500 skilled workers this year," said Clement Lin (林青蔚), a senior human resources manager at AU Optronics Corp (友達光電), the nation's largest thin-film-transistor liquid-crystal-display panel maker.
The number of quality graduates from national universities, such as the National Taiwan University, Tsinghua University and Chiao Tung University is just between 3,000 and 4,000 and cannot meet market demand, Lin said.
According to Lin, it is difficult to recruit proper foreign manpower from Japan or South Korea -- two countries which enjoy a vast skilled labor market. As Taiwan's high-tech rivals in the region, South Korea and Japan are fairly protective of manpower migration.
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