Winning the Battle for Semiconductor Talent

Meeting Semiconductor Workforce Challenges with Workwell MSP

According to a widely circulated report by the Semiconductor Industry Association, the CHIPS Act of 2022 is projected to create nearly 200,000 jobs in the semiconductor industry and in the wider U.S. economy over the next several years. The New York Times reports that this could lead to a shortage of up to 90,000 semiconductor workers in the next few years, and a shortfall of about 300,000 engineers and 90,000 skilled technicians in the U.S. by 2030.

In the highly cyclical chip market, many of the chip makers who overproduced to fulfill demand during the pandemic have now worked through much of their inventory, and will need to once again ramp up operations. In fact, some U.S. chip makers have already begun fighting for talent in the face of an already extremely limited global talent pool.

Workwell North America has already solved such challenges in working with leading semiconductor companies. One industry-leading semiconductor client needed talent to design schematics to build chips that offered specific functionality and scale. The client also needed engineers to test the semiconductor designs for flaws and for quality assurance (QA) prior to shipping the designs to manufacturing.

Workwell North America then developed a tailored MSP program to help the client find the right talent. The Workwell team helped fill 20 needle-in-a-haystack contract design engineering roles in just one month through its extensive partnership network to find the right talent match, and offered benefits to appeal to candidates who had their pick of employment opportunities as well as pay.

In addition, design engineer candidates needed to be open to working 70+ hour weeks occasionally in order to meet strict deadlines, all of which were met by the engineers the team sourced.

Challenges

The client needed to source 20 highly specialized design engineering roles to test semiconductor designs to ensure design quality prior to being shipped for manufacturing. In sourcing such talent, the company faced the following challenges:

• Source 20 Niche Open Roles in Design Engineering. Such talent is hard to find in any market, let alone during a nationwide talent shortage when competition for talent was fierce.
• Candidate Expectations of High Wages. Design engineering candidates who had the requisite skills could command very high wages as tech companies competed for talent and depending on where they were located.
• Retaining Good Talent. The fierce competition for talent in the semiconductor space makes holding on to good talent challenging as skilled engineers are often headhunted by competitors to work on exciting next generation technologies elsewhere.

Solutions

To solve the client’s challenges, the Workwell North America team implemented the following solutions:

• Leveraged Workwell North America’s Global Staffing Network. To enlarge the limited talent pool, Workwell recommended the client work with one of its MSP staffing partners in India with access to talent with the requisite R&D design engineering testing and QA skills.
• Sourced Talent Remotely. To keep wages within budgets and avoid the high wages in certain regions in the U.S., the Workwell team selected MSP staffing firm partners with qualified workers working remotely in geographies with lower living costs for inclusion in the client’s MSP program.
• Designed a Competitive Benefits Package. Partnering with its MSP agencies, Workwell designed a benefits package offering 10-12 days of vacation per year as well as floating holidays, which is a rare benefit for contract workers. Additionally, to help the client retain qualified talent, Workwell paid workers at market rate or slightly higher.

Results

By taking a broader perspective in their approach to solving the client’s challenges, the Workwell team helped deliver the following results:

• Filled 20 highly specialized design engineering, testing and QA contract roles in the semiconductor client’s R&D department in 5G technology in one month
• 93% retention rates for all contract employees within the MSP program
• Relying on the workers Workwell North America helped source, the client was able to deliver the tested chip designs to manufacturing on-time