Jobs at the TSMC semiconductor factory in Arizona could require long hours and total obedience. Americans may push back on the company's culture.

The world’s largest chipmaker promised to create thousands of US jobs. There are growing tensions over whether US workers have the skills or work ethic to do them.::Jobs at the TSMC semiconductor factory in Arizona could require long hours and total obedience. Americans may push back on the company’s culture.

  • bassomitron@lemmy.worldEnglish
    499·
    1 year ago

    So many ignorant comments in this thread. First of all, Taiwan isn’t some poor, developing nation, they’re extremely modernized and highly educated. They literally rank among the highest education rates and scores in the world: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education_in_Taiwan

    For comparison of a basic education stat, the US has around a 79% literacy rate among adults while Taiwan has around 98%.

    Second of all, TSMC workers in Taiwan make decent money on average:

    https://focustaiwan.tw/business/202307010011

    And for their US operations it will be above average as well:

    https://www.glassdoor.com/Salary/TSMC-Salaries-E4130.htm

    https://www.salary.com/research/company/tsmc-salary

    Now, I do agree that their work culture appears to be toxic. However, how many companies in the US are just as demanding and brutal? While Americans are stereotyped as lazy, we’re actually the exact opposite when you look at our average productivity and workloads.

    https://news.gallup.com/poll/175286/hour-workweek-actually-longer-seven-hours.aspx

    https://clockify.me/working-hours

    https://www.bls.gov/productivity/

    Compared to some Eastern countries, we’re definitely working less, but not necessarily producing less, as it’s pretty much proven that longer hours results in a sharp drop off in productivity.

    https://www.researchgate.net/publication/241684896_Are_long_hours_reducing_productivity_in_manufacturing

    Anyway, just food for thought.

      • bassomitron@lemmy.worldEnglish
        3·
        1 year ago

        From that same website you sourced:

        What are the rates of literacy in the United States?

        Four in five U.S. adults (79 percent) have English literacy skills sufficient to complete tasks that require comparing and contrasting information, paraphrasing, or making low-level inferences—literacy skills at level 2 or above in PIAAC (OECD 2013). In contrast, one in five U.S. adults (21 percent) has difficulty completing these tasks (figure 1). This translates into 43.0 million U.S. adults who possess low literacy skills: 26.5 million at level 1 and 8.4 million below level 1, while 8.2 million could not participate in PIAAC’s background survey either because of a language barrier or a cognitive or physical inability to be interviewed. These adults who were unable to participate are categorized as having low English literacy skills, as is done in international reports (OECD 2013), although no direct assessment of their skills is available.

        Even if you take away non-native English speakers based on the numbers on that website further down (which you also quote), that results in a literacy rate of 86%. My point still stands that Taiwan has a much higher literacy rate.

        Edit: formatting

          • bassomitron@lemmy.worldEnglish
            2·
            1 year ago

            I didn’t say functionally illiterate. Having low literacy (i.e. having difficulty with level 2 or higher literacy skills) is not being fully literate, which is typically what these stats are referring to when quoting literacy rates. Ironic that we’re arguing semantics on this.