Hyderabad: Intel has ramped up hiring activity globally in recent times.
However, Intel’s hiring in Taiwan is highly significant for the company’s partners, particularly PC makers.
The rise in Intel’s hiring in the island nation, according to GlobalData experts is part of Intel’s strategy to scale up the existing supply chains with PC manufacturers in Taiwan, and to work with external foundries to ensure the design, quality, and reliability of its products.
Asus and Acer are prominent global PC brands from Taiwan.
Besides this, the world’s largest contract manufacturer Foxconn along with other manufactures like Wistron and Compal Electronics are also based in the tiny island nation located in the South China Sea.
Foxconn, known for making Apple’s iPhone also assembles PCs (laptops, notebooks and tablets) and manufactures some of the computer electronics components for American brands like Dell, HP and others.
An analysis of GlobalData’s Job Analytics Database reveals a considerable jump in Intel’s hiring in Taiwan.
Job postings increased more than three times from 25th in February 2021 to March 2021.
“Intel’s job postings surge in Taiwan is significant given its 2020 hiring trend in the country and the company’s renewed focus on achieving supply security of semiconductors for its PC partners,” said Ajay Thalluri, Business Fundamentals Analyst – GlobalData.
About 80% of the job postings in March 2021 were for experienced engineers, who can work from the Taiwanese cities of Hsinchu and Taipei.
Most jobs were for the technology and manufacturing group in Taiwan that supports the design, development, and manufacture of foundry technologies and semiconductor testing centres.
Jobs include vice president of manufacturing supply chain ramp; yield modelling engineer; graphics software engineer; HW platform application manager; BIOS engineer; physical design manager; external foundry quality and reliability technologist.
Multiple jobs were posted for product engineers, platform validation and debugging engineers.
Additionally, Intel is hiring for business groups such as client ecosystem development; client computing (CCG); data centres (DCG); sales and marketing; and non-volatile memory solutions groups.
Notably, job postings in the DCG group indicate the company’s focus on developing next-generation silicon chipsets.
Significant jobs are also aimed at the global supply chain (GSC) group that focuses on developing new products for original design manufacturers (ODM) and suppliers.
“It was a few months before the COVID-19 pandemic caused disruptions when the then Intel CEO Bob Swan visited Taiwan and said that the company will increase investment in the country. Now, it looks like the company is back on track with its Taiwan-centric strategy as hiring activity gathers momentum,” concluded Thalluri.
Interestingly, Taiwan’s Market Intelligence & Consulting Institute (MIC) in 2020 conducted research with top PC manufacturers.
The research findings indicated an alarming downsizing of China’s share in the PC manufacturing market.
China’s current laptop market manufacturing share could fall from 90% to just 40% by 2030.
Currently, SE Asia has a tiny fraction of this market, which is also predicted to grow by a further 6%, to 170 million units in 2020.