[HN Gopher] Will young Americans want to work in semiconductor m... ___________________________________________________________________ Will young Americans want to work in semiconductor manufacturing? [video] Author : henning Score : 132 points Date : 2022-09-02 00:39 UTC (22 hours ago) (HTM) web link (www.youtube.com) (TXT) w3m dump (www.youtube.com) | JoeDaDude wrote: | From second hand anecdotes, I understand a lot of work involves | handling dangerous chemicals, maybe enough to scare people away | after a couple of years. I know one person that did exactly that, | the risk wasn't worth it anymore. | [deleted] | bfung wrote: | Very good video outlining the context, problems, and bringing | info from social media (hn) and other news! | iancmceachern wrote: | I love this channel, glad to see it here. I agree with his | sentiment after working in the semiconductor industry in the Bay | area off and on for the last 15 years. | [deleted] | jhallenworld wrote: | So here is my recommendation: provide more chairs in the | cleanroom. Seriously, there are like no chairs in there.. | jmpman wrote: | My nanny's sister just started working at a semiconductor plant. | Unfortunately she's talking my nanny into joining. So, yes, if | they pay enough. | teddyh wrote: | Your cue to pay your nanny more? | jmpman wrote: | Or move on from having a nanny. | chitowneats wrote: | Not all jobs are worth the same amount. | | Nannying is quite important but it is low skill (meaning | supply of labor is high) and thus will probably command lower | wages than semiconductor manufacturing. | closetohome wrote: | Job skill is relative. I'm sure everyone's job would be | considered "low skill" to some people. | chitowneats wrote: | Who considers software engineering to be "low skill"? | What about doctors, lawyers, etc? | | People can "consider" anything they want. That doesn't | mean it's accurate. | the_lonely_road wrote: | I don't think its low skill/high supply that's the problem | here. The fact is a nanny is only servicing one family and | so their entire economic input must be a fraction of that | family's income. Same problem hair stylist faces compared | to a software developer. You can only cut so many heads of | hair in a single day which limits your total possible | income to a fraction of mine because a billion people can | buy my software. Its just the way it is and barring some | major change in how society is structured, the way it will | always be. | jjk166 wrote: | But different families have different levels of income, | and there is a very long tail. If nannying paid better, | it would just be a smaller fraction of families that | could afford it. The fact is because it's a low | skill/high supply labor pool, the equilibrium point is | reasonably low, such that even many middle class | households can afford nannies. For software yeah your | cost could be borne by a billion people, but those | billion people could instead bear the cost of a cheaper | developer if they were available. | Bakary wrote: | I don't think it's so clear cut. Baumol costs disease | already goes a long way, and developers only receive | exponential rewards if they have significant equity. Some | can go solo or succeed at the startup route but they are | a minority. | | Furthermore, with AI becoming increasingly sophisticated, | we might see a seachange in developer salaries with only | the most talented and valuable devs getting massive | increases and all the rest being made redundant. Leading | us back to the low skill/high supply problem. | geodel wrote: | Very true. I see that bi-modal salary distribution is | already happening in many places. In fact at lot of | places even pretty good s/w skills might not matter. So | there are run-of-the-mill Java/.net/PHP etc developer | jobs which will get a low band salary irrespective of | actual skill level. And then | Reactive/Mobile/Kubernetes/Deep-learning developer jobs | which by default are set in higher-band salary. | | Another thing I think in cloud with pre-packaged solution | (not just individual pieces of sw/hw) for most common | situations and metered billing, providers are going to | take major chunks of IT budgets. It would be similar to | past when hardware cost was high so developer would get | lower portion of overall budget. | | In my mind the era of on-prem systems, custom solutions | with high paying FTE jobs is coming to an end. And the | myth _developers are kings_ is going to go away along | with that. | | Yeah, 1-2 per cent of total IT workforce working for | cloud providers will be compensated well. Remaining 95% | will be either short term gigs or low pay FTE jobs called | _Cloud Connectivity Developer II_ and so on. | jmpman wrote: | She describes her sister's job as filling a cartridge with | wafers, and then sending it into some robotic conveyance. | And then just sitting there. Probably about as much skill | as navigating a car through rush hour traffic to soccer | practice. | | Her sister isn't installing HF lines, or clean room | downdraft systems. Functional equivalent of flipping | burgers. | | My understanding is that for a while Intel was trying to | only hire PhDs for running its tools, but found that the | especially academic individuals had little interest in the | statistical process control of wafer manufacturing. In high | volume manufacturing, the core engineers are still chemical | engineers with bachelors degrees. | kbelder wrote: | Heh. Sorry for your nanny loss, but that's awesome. | booleandilemma wrote: | I think young americans will work wherever the money is. I see | people everyday (both american and non) that are in software | because that's what pays right now. | | You just have to talk to the nearest product owner, project | manager, or bootcamp grad for an example. | dougabug wrote: | Software has structural economic advantages that are difficult | to match in other professions (particularly ones that can scale | up to support such a large number of practitioners). | systems_glitch wrote: | Speaking from experience, if you're not into the semiconductor | engineering side, consider looking for maintenance personnel | positions with fabs. The work is interesting, your boss will | probably hold a PhD and be competent, and you won't be stuck | behind a desk all day. | abdullah2993 wrote: | What a wonderful solution. Lets pay software engineers less so | they are forced to work on hardware. Why not just have higher | pays for semiconductor people since they are crucial? | okdood64 wrote: | > Lets pay software engineers less | | That was hardly the point of the video's thesis. | trasz wrote: | Because hardware business is based on real economy, instead of | just pretending to be doing something useful to siphon | investors money. | sampo wrote: | Well, there was Theranos. And Juicero. | tristor wrote: | I have worked with a lot of people that escaped from fab jobs | here in the US during my career. The biggest issue I see is that | manufacturing has an absolutely grueling schedule and the pay is | half or less than what equivalent level software jobs pay, with | worse working conditions. | | If you want young Americans to work these jobs, you need to pay | /more/ than software jobs, because the conditions are worse. | Otherwise, you only get the people who can't escape. Anyone who | can escape eventually does. | rr888 wrote: | > you need to pay /more/ than software jobs | | The other way to do that is cut the wages of software jobs. | Honestly with the glut of young developers and remote working | it has started to happen already. | dougabug wrote: | Good luck with that. | | Executives have been trying to do that for decades ("The | Decline and Fall of the American Programmer" has been | heralded since the 80's). | | Even the exhalted Steve Jobs ultimately failed in his | cabalistic attempt to hold down programmer pay. | | It's like a menagerie of Elmer Fudds and Yosemite Sam's | trying to bring down Bugs Bunny. Or a pack Wiley Coyotes | desperate to run down the Roadrunner. | smnrchrds wrote: | > _pay is half or less than what equivalent level software jobs | pay, with worse working conditions_ | | You can say this part about basically any job and it would be | true. Tech salaries and work conditions are ridiculously good, | compared to any almost other job in the US and any other | country than the US. Even other STEM jobs (e.g. civil or | mechanical engineering) tend to have less than half the pay and | much worse benefits and work conditions compared to software. | mensetmanusman wrote: | The coming cohort of university students is showing a huge | influx of CS majors. I wonder how long the high pay lasts | after the flood. | dougabug wrote: | It's not a zero sum game. There isn't some fixed, finite | demand for software. There's no upper bound on how much | value can be created by skilled, imaginative software | engineers, and a programmer can be productive with a | relatively inexpensive set of tools (i.e., a computer and | Internet access, which pretty much everybody has today). | | If software is eating the world, eventually almost all jobs | will in some aspects be software jobs, analogous to how 98% | of the population used to be engaged in some aspect of | agricultural production. We should focus on providing | people with the productivity amplifying tools which could | sustain a high quality standard of living. | xwdv wrote: | _A lot_ of people cannot escape. And it often surprises me how | many people really don't want to work in software. | splistud wrote: | dougabug wrote: | I think a lot of people don't want to work in software | because of the perception or reality of the software | development systems that they have been exposed to. | | If the right tools were invented for them, they might take to | it like ducks to water. | snerbles wrote: | Growing up playing with BASIC on an old DOS machine, in my | childhood solipsism I had this notion that everyone would | love writing code as much as I do and it would be nothing | special. | | In the decades since I've come to believe that actually | _liking_ working on software requires a certain sort | of...personality that most people just don 't have. | bcatanzaro wrote: | That's exactly how I felt. As a kid, I actually planned on | a different career in something less fun like chemistry or | biology because I thought there's no way people would pay | me to write software. Thankfully people informed me I was | wrong. | tristor wrote: | Ironically, I much prefer hardware to software myself, but | during college (while studying EE) decided that it was a | deadend career path and figured out a way to be software- | adjacent without having to be a developer. It worked out | pretty well for me so far. | | The reality is that most people follow incentives, almost | nobody works their actual dream job, they work the job that | they have the most return for their abilities and investment. | HW and SW jobs used to have a lot of overlap from an | abilities perspective, but as each has become more | specialized that overlap has eroded. A lot of people are | choosing to go all-in on software, whether they particularly | love it or not, because it is a far better environment to | work in. | kazen44 wrote: | HW is also far more capital intensive to build compared to | software, so usually far less companies have to resources | to build HW based solutions. | [deleted] | BeetleB wrote: | Most jobs Americans do are not in SW and pay a lot less than | SW. Saying an industry won't thrive because the work is hard | and the pay is less than SW is silly. | dougabug wrote: | Well, at least the people won't thrive if the work is hard | and the pay is low. Some people frame this as some kind of | character defect on the part of Americans, but to me it just | seems like common sense to avoid hard work for low pay, if | possible (unless the work is stupendously interesting). | georgeburdell wrote: | Semiconductor job skills are highly transferrable to | software. | titanomachy wrote: | The video was specifically referring to high-skill | manufacturing engineers, most of whom probably could get some | kind of software job if they wanted to. | EddySchauHai wrote: | The hardest job I had paid minimum wage when I was 16 in the UK | - 3.98 an hour. I make more money taking a crap as a software | engineer than I made in an 8 hour day as a developer. That's | not a joke, I did the math the other day. People work much | harder jobs than sw for much lower wages all over the country | and world. | bigcat12345678 wrote: | Wtf is this type of discussion... | | Cannot the business just pay a bit more... | bmismyname wrote: | Will there be low wages with huge bonuses for the CEOs while the | workers have to struggle to pay rent? Young people know the | future is not bright, and I encourage them to enjoy their lives | while they still can. | polishdude20 wrote: | This world view seems like a potential death spiral. As world | views become bleak, is encouraging people to say "fuck it" and | maximize for enjoyment really the best move? Whatever happened | to working hard to build a future for oneself? Yes, I | understand there are higher powers that be and people with much | more powers than you and I that are ruining the future but is | the answer really to lay down and be engulfed in the pleasure- | filled dopamine high ebbs and flows of the meta-verse? | | It's like the chicken and egg problem. What came first? | Societal collapse or the willingness of its citizens to lay | down and take it? Both cause eachother. Which variable is the | one we can actually change? | | Yes, enjoy your lives but only to the extent to where you step | away from the grind and reevaluate your priorities, take a look | at what is important to you. Hunker down into the priorities | that matter and remove the cruft of distractions. | jjk166 wrote: | Once the captain abandons ship, why should anyone else be | manning their posts? If you do not have the power to change | the situation, the best move is to adapt to it, and in times | of societal collapse that means looking out for yourself. | bmismyname wrote: | Why get on the ship in the first place? Was I forced onto | the ship as a slave to be sold to the highest bidder in | America? Or am I the captain of the ship who will get to | keep all the riches? | | There can only be one captain. If I'm forced onto that ship | as a slave, I will do everything I can to break the chains | and free my comrades. No matter what kind of riches I'm | promised, I won't be the captain of any slave ship, that's | for sure. | pessimizer wrote: | > If I'm forced onto that ship as a slave, I will do | everything I can to break the chains and free my | comrades. | | And you'll be thrown overboard and everyone else (other | than the people who you pulled into your plan, who will | swim with you) will just get on with the business of | surviving. You're not braver than or morally superior to | millions of imported slaves. The Atlantic was filled with | slaves who didn't think that the material world applied | to them. | screye wrote: | The worst thing is that enjoyment and consumerism of all | sorts is relative. Once you get access to food, shelter and | clothing (and healthcare) ....everything else only feels | necessary because someone else on Instagram had it. | | 3 things have led to a greater dejection among the youth: | | 1. Rising rents and low access to shelter (basic need). | Rising costs of Healthcare causes dejection to. | | 2. Continuous exposure to 'perfect' ultra-high consumerism | lives through social media. | | 3. Climate change led doomerism about if the world will even | exist in a few decades. | | ___________ | | This culminates into a deep resentment towards older folk. | Old people disproportionately own property, stress from the | Healthcare system and contributed most to climate change in | their hayday.....all while controlling power in the top | levels of govt. | | The probable solutions are all hard to organically execute. | Do we create counter brainwashing systems to make people live | within their silos (ignorance is bliss)? Do we trade off | guilt driven doomerism about climate change for 'the climate | will be just fine' narratives ? Do we push for pro-child | policies, so children aid in building longterm hope and long | term plans for millennials and gen z ? Do we loosen zoning | rules to allow for cheaper housing for the young, even if | that means boomers assets reduce in value ? Do we regulate | industries such as Healthcare and education to be cheaper by | increasing access, even if that means less 'fancy' services | and arguably lower quality doctors ? | | All hard questions, but those are the peaceful solition. To | quote JFK : "Those who make peaceful revolution impossible | will make violent revolution inevitable". | colechristensen wrote: | >This world view seems like a potential death spiral. | | It's not a death spiral, it's competition. | | When people leave shitty jobs and vacancies can't get filled, | businesses either improve conditions and pay or they lose to | competitors who do. | | The only way you can really negotiate is being ready to say | no and leave when you get a bad offer. People actually doing | that make a difference. | | Suddenly a job has to be better than "fuck it" and people are | making "fuck it" seem glamorous. | | You'll get a lot of business people whining and whinging | about it, but only actions actually matter. | bmismyname wrote: | Forget the metaverse, try LSD and psilocybin. I think the | only reason Zuck is pushing this VR nonsense is that he took | too much and now he thinks he can put ads in your VR trip. | butUhmErm wrote: | I think it's the opposite; he's such a square which | explains why his imagination is stuck on literally creating | Snow Crash. | | Anyone who has tripped balls and come out OK is not so | addicted to literalness as Zuck. They realize a multiverse | of perspectives lives within them. It doesn't need to be | made "real". | bmismyname wrote: | That's a neat way to think about it. I think a lot of the | hype about AI or whatever is just because so many techies | have tried these substances and realized that the brain | is such a weird thing, and now they think they can | emulate it, commodify it, and sell it for a monthly | subscription fee. The truth is, we have no idea how the | brain _actually_ works. | | In "The Doors of Perception", Aldous Huxley describes it | very well: it's like these drugs remove a sensory filter | we normally have in place which makes the world feel | like...well...reality. When you remove that filter, | you're suddenly flooded with the sense that there's so | much more to the universe, but in actual fact it's all | just in your head. It's just your brain cells doing a lot | of communication with each other in a way that is most | likely nonsensical. | | Some people come out the other side thinking they've | found some magic, but more likely they've just | experienced what was always there without the filter, and | once it wears off you're the same person you were but | perhaps with a sense of feeling like you're part of a big | system (which we all are, called biology). | | From a strictly biological perspective it makes sense, | given that most life is based on DNA and we share a lot | of DNA with things that we are very different from. We | share about 60% of our DNA with bananas. | powerslacker wrote: | If life is ultimately meaningless then why not? The world you | are talking about where people work to better the future for | themselves and their progeny is reliant on life having some | kind of purpose or meaning. If the universe is the result of | random chance and life itself is the result of accidental | chemical processes then life doesn't have inherent meaning. | | Why SHOULD someone who believes the things I've mentioned do | anything except attempt to maximize personal pleasure? | bmismyname wrote: | "I tell you, we are here on Earth to fart around, and don't | let anybody tell you different." | | - Kurt Vonnegut | AngryData wrote: | And what are they building toward if most people are | consistently losing wages under inflation and the wealthy | keep getting wealth injections from the government? Many | people sees this only going two ways, the rich get richer and | the poor get poorer so they will likely spend their lifetime | just barely surviving, or there is a huge economic crash from | the top heavy economy in which case anything they built gets | smashed to pieces anyways. | | Most people these days have seen multiple large economic | crashes and swings and have very little faith that our | economic systems are stable or sustainable. Prospects for the | bottom 2/3 of the population are negative, stability is | questionable, long term sustainability isn't anywhere near | feasible yet. | | You get one life, might as well enjoy it while you can. Not | just labor your days away for the short term benefits of the | few. | imtringued wrote: | It's a prisoners dilemma. Someone cheats and you can either | not cheat and be treated like a fool while the cheater gets | all the status and attention and calls you stupid and says | that you deserve it or you can cheat, walk toward the cliff | and fall off together with the cheater. | | From a societal standpoint we should teach our children to | just let themselves be cheated and work anyway and shoulder | the burden of the cheaters because even if cheaters ruin your | life, they only ruin your life, not society as a whole, which | only is only ruined if you cheat back. | verisimilitudes wrote: | There are at least two other options here: | | 1) Expel the cheaters (a popular choice with the Jews for | the last millennium or so). | | 2) Kill the cheaters. | ModernMech wrote: | > Whatever happened to working hard to build a future for | oneself? | | People are discovering that working hard doesn't build a | better future for oneself, it builds a better future for CEOs | and shareholders. | godelski wrote: | I think what is most insidious about this world view is that | working on solutions to the issues appear as support for the | viewpoint. We're all problem solvers here and we all know | that the first thing to creating something new is recognizing | a problem that can be solved. It can then be broken down into | many sub problems that can either be worked on individually | or need to be solved in tandem. But breaking down our | problems and revealing its complexities are often not seen as | the first steps towards solutions, but rather seen as a | larger force that we need to overcome. It ignores the | momentum that we see every day in our solutions: hardest at | first, but once the ball is rolling things start to fall into | place (often making progress, unfortunately, difficult to | measure. Especially when you're in the thick of it). That | frustration and setbacks can make it hard to move forward, | but we always find a way in the end. We wouldn't be problem | solvers if we didn't. | | I don't know about you all, but I'm not willing to say "fuck | it." There's enough beauty in the world to enjoy and seek to | preserve. We've clearly made changes in the past and made | things better. While we stand on the shoulders of giants, | they are in reality 3 dudes in a trench coat sitting on one | another. Personally, I take pride in trying to build a better | future for my (non-existent) children and generations to | come. We're all in this together and I think a lot of us want | to build that Sci-Fi utopia that we read about and dreamed of | as children. We can still make that world, but not if we say | "fuck it." | | The reality is that our decisions determine if we live in the | Cyberpunk Dystopia or the Sci-Fi Star Trek-esk Utopia. Giving | up is choosing the former and actively participating in its | creation. | bmismyname wrote: | Personally I'm not saying "fuck it", but I have reached the | point where I just won't go along with the bullshit | anymore. I'm going to fight. | godelski wrote: | Sounds like you are playing the game then. Good. Fight to | make the world better instead of selling depression. | Depression is contagious after all. | bmismyname wrote: | I reject the idea that depression is the source of your | problems. It's just a symptom. Treating depression as | anything other than a symptom won't make you happier, at | best you'll feel numb, but likely maintain your profound | sense of sadness. | | If everyone's depressed, we shouldn't be asking "how do | we get more SSRIs into these people?", but rather "how do | we fix society so people aren't depressed?". | dangus wrote: | The person you replied to has some...interesting opinions | about psychedelics...anyway... | | > As world views become bleak, is encouraging people to say | "fuck it" and maximize for enjoyment really the best move? | | The answer to this question is _obviously_ yes. Why _wouldn | 't_ anyone maximize for life enjoyment? I hardly think that's | equivalent to saying "fuck it." | | Here's the thing: the video talks about the career track of | semiconductor manufacturing in Taiwan being limited. When | we're talking careers that require education and training, | people are going to look at the opportunity cost of choosing | one vocation over another. | | Whether people want to do this work really just depends on | how much these roles are going to pay. | | I also think it's incredibly realistic and mature for the | youngest generation to acknowledge how their earning | potential is being squandered into healthcare, housing, and | education that all consistently grow faster than inflation. | They are fully aware that employers make minimal investment | in employees' education or training, prefer external hires | for senior leadership and management rather than promoting | from within, and purposefully optimize for their own | employees to job hop. Every employee I know is 100% aware | that any extra effort they put into their work isn't going to | be rewarded with extra pay, and that promotions and pay | raises that they can get are never as high as switching jobs. | | I applaud every young person who sets boundaries and refuses | to go above and beyond for employers who don't go above and | beyond for their employees. | bmismyname wrote: | You should try psychedelics, or at least read a few books | on them. It probably won't change your life, but it'll | definitely give you new perspectives. In my case, I think | it made me a better person, and I find I have much better | relationships now. | dangus wrote: | Is badgering people to do psychedelics in situations with | zero contextual relevance to doing psychedelics one of | the ways in which you've become a better person, or is | that a remaining negative personality trait where a few | more psychedelic sessions might cure you of the | affliction? | Apocryphon wrote: | > What came first? Societal collapse or the willingness of | its citizens to lay down and take it? | | The previous poster's description of the problem isn't by | force of nature. It's by other people ("huge bonuses for the | CEOs while the workers have to struggle to pay rent"). | Perhaps the CEOs should offer some concessions to the young | workers. | bmismyname wrote: | Indeed. Eventually there will be a revolution if the wealth | concentration trend continues. I'm on the side of the | working class forever and always, as I grew up dirt poor | (and got exceptionally lucky because of my early interest | in computers) and my family is still dirt poor today, so I | have a good idea of what it's _actually_ like to starve. | rs999gti wrote: | > if the wealth concentration trend continues | | Or unsustainable housing costs | bmismyname wrote: | Housing is treated as an investment these days, instead | of as housing. That's the fundamental cause of | unaffordability, and it exacerbates the problem. It's | easily fixed with the right policies, but at this point | it can never be fixed (with a huge political left turn, | maybe). | | Making it easier to obtain leverage doesn't make housing | cheaper, it just makes the prices go even higher faster. | imtringued wrote: | It's the same with money, when money deflates it's | treated as an investment too, not a medium of exchange. | | Just like housing being too expensive ruins it's ability | to provide housing for everyone, money being too | expensive causes a recession and unemployment. | | The difference however is that money can be created | through borrowing so it doesn't go up in value but | housing is restricted through zoning and the availability | of land, you just can't make more of it. | bmismyname wrote: | You're correct, but the other thing with housing is that | we actually have a supply glut. There are something like | 16 million vacant homes in the US (according to numbers | from an internet search). | | Why so many vacant homes? The answer (as with everything | in economics) is that the incentives are such that it's | better to sit on a vacant home. In other words, our | current system incentivizes hoarding homes. | chitowneats wrote: | Broken_Hippo wrote: | Gee, Weird how a little realism is somehow making a downward | mobility. | | The fact is that a good deal of workers are struggling to get | by while the folks at the top get bonuses equal to more than | a few weeks pay. Being realistic, even when hidden under a | layer of sarcasm, is preferable lest things not change. | ThrowawayTestr wrote: | And here I thought it was crushing inflation, unaffordable | housing and stagnant wages. | chitowneats wrote: | Those are all real issues. That's why I used the term | "exacerbate". | | Those who do the bare minimum to get by in life are only | hurting themselves in the long run. | | This remains true despite a gloomy macroeconomic outlook. | Apocryphon wrote: | > bare minimum | | But a lot of people aren't even doing that. They're | choosing to pick more lucrative career paths such as | pushing JavaScript for cat photo social networks, working | on ways to increase engagement for users to see ads, and | whatever other ways FAANGs previously propped up by low | interest rates, or startups propped up by VC funding, | make money. | | That work isn't necessarily easier, but it's not | semiconductor manufacturing, or rebuilding American | infrastructure, or being essential workers during a | pandemic, or whatever other important but far less-paying | work than consumer software engineering (or say, the | financial industry). | chitowneats wrote: | I hear these arguments all the time. | | If software engineering is such a cushy, desirable, | lucrative job, why don't more people do it? | | It's easy to forget the thousands of hours it takes to | become competent in this field once you've been in it for | a while. Most people simply do not care enough to take | the time to learn to do it despite being fully capable. | It ain't rocket surgery. | Apocryphon wrote: | > If software engineering is such a cushy, desirable, | lucrative job, why don't more people do it? | | Lots of people are, and try, that's why bootcamps and | Leetcode prep have been so big for the past decade. More | and more people are joining, but also there's a lot of | demand so jobs are unfilled. | | (You're also completely failing to read when I said "that | work isn't necessarily easier".) | | My point is that a lot of people gravitate towards those | hot industries, definitely more people than those going | to lesser-paying industries in say semiconductor | manufacturing, which is what TFA is about. My point is | your comment about "attitudes exacerbating downward | mobility" have nothing to do with why people don't want | to work in semiconductor manufacturing. | chitowneats wrote: | "That work isn't necessarily easier", is obviously | implying that it _can_ be easier, or is roughly | equivalent. Your entire comment was a clever way of | turning the tables on software engineers. Please don 't | insult my intelligence by pretending otherwise. | | > My point is your comment about "attitudes exacerbating | downward mobility" have nothing to do with why people | don't want to work in semiconductor manufacturing. | | It has everything to do with why they don't want to do | software engineering. I can't tell you how many of my | educated peers think it's "lame" or "selling out" to work | in a skilled career rather than being a bartender, | activist, starving artist, etc. | Apocryphon wrote: | > Your entire comment was a clever way of turning the | tables on software engineers. Please don't insult my | intelligence by pretending otherwise. | | Thank you for calling me clever, but getting personal in | a comment section isn't exactly amenable to discussion. | Not to mention, ignoring all of the other points | mentioned in the reply. I will accept your compliment, | however. | | > It has everything to do with why they don't want to do | software engineering. I can't tell you how many of my | educated peers think it's "lame" or "selling out" to work | in a skilled career rather than being a bartender, | activist, starving artist, etc. | | What does that have to do with them not wanting to work | in semiconductor manufacturing, which generally pays less | than median software engineering salaries and is less | sought-after? Do you actually have any comments germane | to the discussion at hand? Are your educated peers | actually eschewing well-paid skilled careers, either in | software engineering or not, in favor of those other | professions you've listed? What other careers are they | pursuing instead? Are you attempting to establish a link | between them calling those professions '"lame" or | "selling out"' and downwards mobility? How old are these | peers, and do they actually exist? What is your actual | point here? | bmismyname wrote: | Do you really believe that the people at the top of the | pyramid are working hard every day? If you do, then I've | got bad news for you. | ThrowawayTestr wrote: | "I know you're struggling to pick between rent and food, | but have considered working harder?" | 77pt77 wrote: | >Working 3 times harder for half the pay is still making | 50% more. | | I can't stand these delusions. | rich_sasha wrote: | You don't pick the weather, but if you go with the wind, | you're guaranteed to end up downwind. | | I'm not saying it's fair! | bmismyname wrote: | Ah yes, the old "it's the poors' fault they're poor because | they don't want to work hard for poverty wages". | chitowneats wrote: | *they're | bmismyname wrote: | Thanks, I'm ashamed I made that typo. | jamestimmins wrote: | As a young (ish) person, I wholeheartedly disagree with and | reject this worldview, and would argue you're doing others an | enormous disservice by promoting it. | | There are enormous challenges. Life literally depends on | solving them. Suggesting that they can't be solved is | tantamount to telling humanity to give up and die. | godelski wrote: | > Suggesting that they can't be solved is tantamount to | telling humanity to give up and die. | | Not only that, but it is _actively_ participating in the | cyberpunk dystopia that they are saying is inevitable. If | evil only needs good men to do nothing to grow, problems only | need us to give up to become worse. (I'm clearly no poet) | bmismyname wrote: | This is a game where the only way to win is to not play, or | to have rich parents. | imtringued wrote: | Yes and that is why it is better if humanity didn't | exist. I.e. nobody plays. | | Entertain the idea that every human has the option to be | reincarnated when they die. How many people would | voluntarily kill themselves to have a chance at being | born to rich parents? It wouldn't surprise me if one | third of the world population is constantly killing | themselves for that lottery ticket. | godelski wrote: | Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. | You're talking on a form full of people who code for a | living. Many who have seen their lives become | substantially better. There are many problems and | challenges that we still face, but that doesn't mean | there are no solutions. | bmismyname wrote: | https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jun/16/super- | rich-f... | godelski wrote: | I'm not sure what you're trying to tell me here. I'm well | aware of this. I'm saying that we need to do something | about it or stop complaining. If you complain and take no | further steps you are advocating for the issues, not | condemning them. | imtringued wrote: | They are trivial to solve but putting the solution in | practice is impossible. | joemazerino wrote: | Speak for yourself, nihilist. Opportunities abound for those | willing to work for them. | bmismyname wrote: | Once you realize the game can't be won by doing what master | tells you, you can start to beat the game. Master will not | tell you how to beat him, for him to succeed you must fail. | imtringued wrote: | We have to create artificial opportunities to keep that | facade up. | erdos4d wrote: | Completely agree. I see others are not liking this comment. I | suspect they have an interest in young people continuing to | slave themselves for less and less. The cold truth is that | young people can cause a hell of a lot of trouble if they do it | en mass. I encourage them to not only enjoy their lives but to | be ready to buck the system hard when the time comes. This | world can't continue this way and the ones pushing for it are | not going to stop and cut the youth a fair deal until they feel | their backs against the wall and the real fear sets in. They | are a thick bunch, you have to get through to them this way. | [deleted] | spaetzleesser wrote: | "Will there be low wages with huge bonuses for the CEOs while | the workers have to struggle to pay rent?" | | Isn't that the updated "American Dream"? | bmismyname wrote: | To quote George Carlin, "they call it the American dream | because you have to be asleep to believe it". | millzlane wrote: | I heard on the news this morning it's called the American | Experiment. | dr-detroit wrote: | abletonlive wrote: | This is a "doomer" comment and should be called out as such. It | doesn't reflect the reality that in general globally, people | enjoy a higher quality of life than previous generations do. | RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: | Lots of Americans work as plumbers dealing with literal poop | every day. They will even come in the middle of the night to deal | with your poop emergency. | | The issue is getting paid enough, not the nature of the job. | 0xbadc0de5 wrote: | Just out of high-school, I worked in a fiber-optic component | assembly plant - wave-division multiplexers, optical circulators, | etc. It was clean room, bunny suit, microscope work for the most | part. But it was also moderate-skill, repetitive work - they'd | hire large cohorts and provide all the necessary training. If you | could keep up with the quotas and QC, you were in and made a | decent wage and there was some room for growth. If not, you were | let go. Not the type of work I'd take a pay cut for these days, | but for young me, it was a foot in the door, paid okay and | provided great experience. | | Semiconductor plant jobs may not be as lucrative as SW | engineering, but they are indeed _jobs_ that pay alright for low | to moderate skilled labour. And on-shoring of tech manufacturing | seems like a good idea. | mensetmanusman wrote: | This alludes to an important point. If the semiconductor | manufacturers coming to the US could take advantage of the | software skill sets for automation that exist in the US, it | could really help people have less repetition in their job and | make it more rewarding. | jleyank wrote: | I think it will come down to money. People work with hot tar in | the blazing sun for money, and toil in Amazon warehouses for | money. Make it worth people's while and yeah, they'll work in | semiconducting manufacturing. | bdw5204 wrote: | It especially comes down to money when you're trying to hire | people who don't have a college degree or who can't get a good | paying job with their degree. | | You basically have to be making enough money to live well | before you get to a point where you can genuinely care about | things other than the money. Either that or the other factors | have to be absolute necessities for you. | | Of course the McJobs will have to pay more if somebody hires | away too much of their labor pool and they can't find anybody | who wants to work for $15 an hour anymore just like they had to | start paying more than minimum wage a few years ago when Amazon | started paying $15 an hour for warehouse workers. That's why | there's so much pushback against this idea. | henning wrote: | Yes. The same applies to infosec, COBOL, and other niches where | jerbs allegedly can't be filled: pay more money to attract | better and more people. | kevin_thibedeau wrote: | Software jobs don't have manufacturing overhead. You can't | compare them to other technical fields. | BobbyJo wrote: | You can in terms of labor supply and demand, just not in | terms of capital intensity. | godelski wrote: | It is interesting how often people push back against this | solution. We see so many people choose careers based on the | projected earnings. It is even a stereotype for immigrants: you | can be a doctor, lawyer, (or now) software engineer. Ironically | I think the rich would get richer if they chose to pay many of | these employees more. We often frame things as zero sum games, | but clearly this is a positive sum one. You invent new things | and new wealth has entered the world. | kazen44 wrote: | heck, Henry ford started this buy increases wages so much his | employees where able to buy the product they themselves have | build. | rch wrote: | Offering people time and flexibility is also effective. Some | could work '4 on 4 off' schedules, for example. | ThrowawayTestr wrote: | If the pay is good why not? | yoyopa wrote: | worstestes wrote: | Ah yes, blame labor. If apple, or really any tech/manufacturing | company, want a workforce they need to pay for it accordingly. | Money talks. | | My question to you -- do you work in manufacturing? Why or why | not? | paulmd wrote: | Dunno why people are picking on apple here... what I have | heard from people who worked at Intel is that apple is known | in the industry for, I quote, "turning Intel's training | pipeline into a waiting room for apple HR". After working at | Intel for two weeks you are highly likely to get an offer | from apple for twice your Intel salary and a lot of people | take it. | | Apple is basically known for paying far above market to | retain the best talent, and apple silicon reflects that (or | did during the last 10 years although supposedly there has | been something of an exodus over the last few). Whereas it's | really Intel who is notorious for playing the "who can we get | at 75% of the going market rate" game. | honkler wrote: | Am I going to be a wagie. If yes, then no. | KingMachiavelli wrote: | A substantial perk would be subsidized housing. A modern fab can | cost ~$20B (maybe more in the US) and obviously the planning and | permit process is likely also a couple order of magnitudes more | difficult than normal real estate development. | | Spending ~$100M on employee housing would make the compensation a | lot more competitive since software salaries are high but tend to | be located in HCOL areas. Spend another ~$100M on training and | education facilities and I think you could attract a lot of | Americans right of of high school. Even if it still a bit less | competitive than software it could still be the second best | career industry. | | I think the industry already partly does this but doing it on a | larger scale and marketing it as an alternative to college would | make it more compelling. I think the industry is still like many | other large industries that really want a degree in some | engineering despite it not necessarily being very applicable to | fab work. | stonemetal12 wrote: | I could see it working if it were indirect and at arms length. | A bit of a planned neighborhood that included High and medium | density housing near the factory, maybe kick a few bucks the | developers way to get it built right. That way there is supply | of reasonably priced housing nearby. | | I wouldn't directly subsidize it though, that would become | bigger shackles than work provided health care. | ejb999 wrote: | >>I wouldn't directly subsidize it though, that would become | bigger shackles than work provided health care. | | Correct, factory towns worked out great for the factory | owners - not so much for the people that worked there. | | Having a good supply of affordable housing nearby any | facility that needs to hire a lot of low to middle paying | people is probably a good thing, but letting the company run | and control it will inevitably lead to abuses imo. | splistud wrote: | mattkrause wrote: | Spousal hiring is another very under-rated recruiting tool, | especially if you want to bring someone in from far away. | | You don't even necessarily need to _hire_ the partner directly; | just help them find a job somewhere in the area. | dijonman2 wrote: | The last thing I would want is to live on a corporate campus. | | Lose my job and evicted at the same time? No thanks, plus I | want privacy. | kazen44 wrote: | what about a company building housing for its employees. | | This is something that happened a lot in the netherlands in | the city of eindhoven. Phillips had its major manufacturing | located in the city, and build massive housing projects to | house its workers relatively close to the plant. | renewiltord wrote: | Well, I have lots of friends and relatives who work at the Intel | fab and Intel is a pretty big employer, so the answer is yes, | right? | bnt wrote: | I strongly recommend this channel if you're into all-things | semiconductor industry. Great insights and (pretty much) every | episode is well written and to the point. | bluedino wrote: | Depends on the role. | | There's a place nearby where they produce raw silicon. They are | rated three of five stars on Famous_Job_Site, and they only hire | through a temp service, and you can be there ten years before | getting hired in directly. Rules like if you miss X days or are | late Y times you get fired. | | The worst job is probably poly breaker, where they have three | shifts of people in protective suits that smash large pieces of | silicon down with hammers. | | Last I heard you get $14/hr. They are always hiring and nobody | wants to work there. | | https://imgur.com/a/OmqsEuM | jpgvm wrote: | Correct. | | Too many people think shiny Infinity Loop One office when chips | come up. The reality is that chip designers are like 0.1% of | the available roles. Fab workers/supervisors/maintenance etc | are maybe 25% and the rest is in a very very long tail of | supply chain involving lots of vary hazardous chemicals and | shitty manual labour. | | I'm all for trying to diversify semi-conductor manufacturing | but I really doubt Americans have it in them to do what the | Chinese/Taiwanese currently do - specifically in the fabs | themselves and in the chemical and poly silicate plants that | support them. | coredog64 wrote: | This ignores the fact that there's a number of companies that | currently fab semiconductors in the United States. | Phoenix/Mesa is one epicenter, but there's also some high | tech fabs in Oregon and New York. | jpgvm wrote: | Yes, just the fabs. Where do they import the bulk of the | chemicals and other inputs from? | smegger001 wrote: | that seems like a job that should have been replaced by a | machine. no way it more effective to have people breaking that | with hammers than to have machine do it. | | also this country really needs stricter laws on what qualifies | as a temp | dmitriy_ko wrote: | > poly breaker, where they have three shifts of people in | protective suits that smash large pieces of silicon down with | hammers | | Why is this done manually? wouldn't it be easy to automate? | ElevenLathe wrote: | No idea, but assuming this guy doesn't live in mid-Michigan, | there's a plant here that hires people to do the same thing. | bluedino wrote: | Talking about HSC ;) | kranke155 wrote: | If it pays enough, yes. | | The problem is always pay. Don't be fooled. | bob1029 wrote: | I worked at the Samsung A2/S2 lines in ATX with a bunch of young | Americans back around 2011-2013. I would say they absolutely | would. | | It's a very high-energy place with more going on than you can | ever hope to keep track of. Even if the technology doesn't | interest you, the cultural interactions should. You could have | some days with Japanese, Koreans and Americans translating 3-ways | in a conference room. Opportunities for business travel are | probably restricted more now, but when I was there they | practically begged us to travel to the Korean sites in hopes that | we would learn more faster. | | Some roles can be far more exciting than others. Someone has to | work security and manage the facilities. That said, all the | important roles seem to be the compelling ones too. I don't know | of anyone who had a hard time getting another super cushy job | after time at Samsung, so it's also great for long term career | prospects. | gopher_space wrote: | > Some roles can be far more exciting than others. Someone has | to work security and manage the facilities. | | This would be an interesting employer for many trades. | dr-detroit wrote: | rudididdjdh wrote: | cxr wrote: | I can't corroborate this at all. | | I come from a CS background. If you leave school and enter the | workforce at SAS, you will be at a disadvantage insofar as you | are looking for a workplace that you hope to learn something | from or one that you hope reinforces good engineering | practices. The semiconductor industry, from the vantage point | of an experienced systems thinker, reinforces awful engineering | practices. All the things that SE folks take for granted-- | version control, e.g, as a discipline/tool to name one example, | for regression analysis--say goodbye to any of these things, | along with any expectation of competence from your colleagues. | | The semiconductor industry sources heavily from the defense | sector, and this has deleterious, catastrophic effects. | | A close friend (from a non-CS engineering background) I know to | still be at SAS. We don't talk about finances, but at around 8 | years in, I estimate that he just recently (since COVID) | crossed the six figure threshold. He's in a fairly senior role. | Meanwhile: "What's x86?" -- a direct quote from a conversation | not too long ago. | | He has no real professional experience outside of SAS, was not | set up in an environment that rewards "extracurricular" | experience, so he doesn't have any of that, either, and he's | effectively stuck as a result of the "golden" handcuffs that | the path at SAS has led him on. | | Don't work in the semiconductor industry, folks. What you can | expect to be is a monkey pressing buttons on a machine (that | your supervisor--and their supervisor--doesn't understand, and | nor will you; you pass butter). Make no mistake: there's an | abundance of low-hanging fruit. But you won't have, as Gerry | Weinberg put it, "permission" to pick it. | | By all means, if your prospects/ambitions look to be something | like working for the state/federal government, learning nothing | over your career, and cashing mediocre checks for doing | mediocre work along the way, then by all means go for it. | Otherwise, it is likelier that you'll be hobbled by your time | in the industry. And not for no good reason. If I'm evaluating | someone and it came up that they'd done any significant time in | the world of semiconductors, the net impression it'd have on me | (having hash an insider's view of it) would be one worse than | if they said that they'd just gotten their degree and had spent | the last _N_ years flipping burgers, cf Dan Luu. | | Don't do semiconductors, folks. | | PS: sorry, drunk. | jason-phillips wrote: | sxr's posts about Samsung always strike me as being | particularly bitter. The thing about chronically bitter | people is that they're implacable. | assttoasstmgr wrote: | You're right, we should encourage the new generation to all | strive to become overpaid mediocre SWEs only in it for the | quick cash, because the world doesn't have enough shitty food | delivery apps. Hopefully I've painted this with a broad | enough brush. There is more to a fulfilling career than | money. | | In fact, an entire generation of SWEs who forgot the concepts | of simplicity and efficiency, coding a never-ending avalanche | of rubbish bloated apps is why we continually need new | silicon. | runnerup wrote: | https://www.destroyallsoftware.com/talks/the-birth-and- | death... | | Recent front page submission comes to mind XD | mensetmanusman wrote: | This is like saying don't go into medicine because you have | to be a resident nurse along the way. | | Semiconductor fabrication is the most advanced engineering | humanity has ever attempted, so you will reach your threshold | eventually solving problems that might not have answers | (depending on your role). Not everyone wants to do that | though, and the world needs implementers and those focused on | details. | | Pay? Could be higher for sure. | sudosysgen wrote: | They were giving anecdotes of "fairly senior people" and | talking about the incompetence expected of managers, which | is not analogous to a resident nurse. | nixass wrote: | Drunk is not an excuse for such a crappy view on the world | jimbokun wrote: | > but at around 8 years in, I estimate that he just recently | (since COVID) crossed the six figure threshold. | | Better than most people. | verall wrote: | Not every semicon is SAS, I've heard similar things as what | your friend has said about them though. No offense but your | post comes off as someone who has spent their whole life in | software and has no experience in semicon. | cxr wrote: | Maybe I didn't succeed at getting it across, but my | anecdotes about SAS are not only by proxy. (I.e. my | friend's experience and that alone.) I worked there. | samfisher83 wrote: | I used to work in semi. Pay and opportunities are way better in | software. | abledon wrote: | just looked at that youtube channel... holy cow the amount of | content coming out is huge. surely its not just 1 guy doing all | the research _and_ narrating? he probably has a team? | | Edit: wow ok it really is 1 guy. (albeit good patreon revenue to | pay for research time) | | from patreon: > My name is Jon and I make videos on the | Asianometry YouTube channel. I started the channel as a way to | share things that I've learned about Chinese and Taiwanese | history as well as vlog a little bit on my explorations of | Taiwan. | colechristensen wrote: | Young Americans are perfectly willing to do a half-assed job when | conditions suck and pay is low. They are harder to exploit than | foreign workers and previous generations because the "hard work" | mentality really doesn't last when the rewards get less with | every generation. They will either leave a job whenever they feel | like they've had enough or just phone it in for a good long while | giving shitty performance for shitty pay. | | It is entirely possible to get good work out of younger | generations, but you really have to start paying them | competitively with how much you pay management and how much you | pay capital. | | It turns out there is a whole lot of rent seeking by people who | don't do much (own capital, work as a middle manager, own real | estate) and to compete, people are just checking out instead of | trying to climb to an ever smaller top. | | If it seems impossible to have a home, a family, and resources to | actually do things with your life, living in a van and traveling | around actually enjoying the world, even in rather extreme | poverty, is quite a better life than being a wage slave. | Existenceblinks wrote: | Excellent. My background is computer engineering who enrolled | shit load of computer network classes, interned for a Cisco gold | partner, but then switched to software development. At some | points my network engineers friends (and hardware stuff | engineers) turned into software development, mostly web | development. | | I'd like to add one more factor here. It's transferable knowledge | AND cheap cost of building your own business. When I was an | intern to install and config a bunch of switches, routers, | firewalls, and realized a switch is so expensive that I wouldn't | be able to build my own business like this. So I got into | software development job. It's way easier and also able to do | side software project. IaaS or PaaS is so cheap, no needs to mess | with data center myself. | | Work for X for a decade and open your own X business is not | applicable to semiconductor job. | kazen44 wrote: | starting a networking company (except consulting) is extremely | hard. Building an ISP is even harder and requires insane | amounts of money. | | Most of my friends in the network engineering field either work | at companies that are large/complex enough to have challenging | environments with proper networking hardware, or work as a | freelance consultant for said companies. | | The problem with career growth in network engineering is that, | to grow in technical skills, usually larger networks are | require to get access to gear and systems that can pose a | challenge. Not a lot of those companies exist. Also, making a | screw up in suchs an environment is far more detrimental than | in a small network, because of the increased scale/complexity | of the network. | 7speter wrote: | Really, after watching channels like Moores Law Is Dead and other | techtubers and learning about the gpu and cpu markets and | products, I wish I got into electrical engineering to so that I | could work on the design teams at Intel or AMD or NVidia or Apple | graton wrote: | Tangentially related is the lack of young people entering the | "trades" (plumbing, electrical, construction, etc). | | Can't help but think that now is probably a good time to enter a | "trade" due to the lack of people who are doing that. | rcarr wrote: | Everyone I know who got an apprenticeship after school instead | of going to uni are absolutely raking it in and have enjoyed a | significantly better quality of life than their uni going | peers. I personally can't see how the uni goers will end up | having a better time in the long run as the official narrative | goes. The majority of the tradies seem to end up buying | multiple houses and going the landlord route for early | retirement. | TylerE wrote: | Ask them about their back and knees when they're 50. | bee_rider wrote: | Sitting in a chair is really unhealthy, so it isn't like | the programmers have dodged selling their bodies for a nice | salary. | AngryData wrote: | Do you really think sitting in a chair is even comparable | to move hundred or thousands of pounds of work materials | at a time, being bent or twisted into access holes, being | exposed to various construction dusts and materials, or | even just working in often excessively hot or cold | environments? | pessimizer wrote: | I think it's worth looking at, rather than making an | assumption. Tradespeople are a lot more physically fit | than the median office drone. I had abs when I worked on | the factory floor, when I was promoted to the offices, I | put on 40 lbs. | wyre wrote: | Stranding desks and treadmill desks also exist. Employers | might even buy you one if you ask! | mhh__ wrote: | "really" unhealthy | bee_rider wrote: | Quotes for emphasis? | lotsofpulp wrote: | Quotes are because you are comparing damage from sitting | in a chair that can be mitigated by walking around, | standing, and working out, to inevitable damage from | inhaling fumes and particles, lifting objects, and | repeatedly contorting one's body and putting pressure on | joints that have a far higher probability of irreversible | damage. | mensetmanusman wrote: | America is almost 50% obese and average lifespan is | dropping. "No one is healthy" | buggythebug wrote: | Such a stupid question. Some will, some won't. | apengwin wrote: | if you pay them they will come | JimmieMcnulty wrote: | Honestly, based on the content of this video and the replies from | the prior HN thread, it seems like folks are locked into the | belief that the current manufacturing... "experience" (for lack | of a better term) for the workers involved will be lifted from | Asia and dropped into the US, but that doesn't actually make any | sense to me. | | Sure, that's how the world knows how to make chips now, but given | the varying laws between those two places, and the varying | workforce cultures, I think it's safe to say that adaptations | will be made to the experience to suit American workers, and | those adaptations won't result in meaningful drop offs in quality | or execution. | | As an outsider, it seems pretty clear that the rejection to the | industry is more about the cultural mismatch than it is to the | actual work needing to be executed. | | It's just weird to me that people really believe nothing about | the job will change, and all of the Asian cultural aspects of the | way the job is currently executed would be dropped on American | workers with zero adjustments. | moomin wrote: | Nissan ran a very successful car manufacturing facility for | many years in the U.K. This kind of cultural adaptation is | exactly how they did it. And it turns out that Geordies were | more than capable of executing "The Nissan Way". | Apocryphon wrote: | Another attempt, where Toyota and GM attempted to build a | plant together in Fremont, California: | | https://www.thisamericanlife.org/561/nummi-2015 | ForHackernews wrote: | Not just an attempt. | | Toyota is the one of largest employers of Americans in the | auto industry today: | https://www.thomasnet.com/articles/top-suppliers/car- | manufac... | Apocryphon wrote: | True, they have plenty of plants, I just mean it sounds | like NUMMI wasn't as successful as it could've been. | vxNsr wrote: | According to that story which I've listened to before, | that partnership had a very specific set of goals, once | those goals were achieved or deemed unachievable (as the | case may be) the purpose of the plant no longer existed | so they shut it down. | chris_j wrote: | Why "ran" in the past tense? The plant is still running. | | And why the reference to Geordies - natives of Newcastle - | when the plant is in Sunderland? | | https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nissan_Motor_Manufacturing_U. | .. | LAC-Tech wrote: | _And why the reference to Geordies - natives of Newcastle - | when the plant is in Sunderland?_ | | Google maps tells me those two places are only 14.3 miles | away. So 1) that's pretty understandable to conflate and 2) | a lot of people from Newcastle probably commute there. | chris_j wrote: | The reason I noticed it is that the two cities, though | very close geographically, have an intense and not | entirely friendly rivalry that goes back hundreds of | years and continues to this day. See for example the | History section of [0]. Although it's understandable that | someone not familiar with the area could confuse the two | places, friends from Sunderland tell that they are pretty | offended when they are mistaken for Geordies. I imagine | it's like accusing Bart Simpson and his friends of being | from Shelbyville. | | [0] | https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyne%E2%80%93Wear_derby | | EDIT: Please forgive me for bringing this up. I | appreciate it's not particularly relevant to moomin's | comment about the culture of the Nissan plant, which I | agree with aside from my nitpicks, nor to the original | video. | dontlaugh wrote: | I don't know that it's universal. At least some people I | know from Sunderland call themselves Geordies. | marginalia_nu wrote: | My experience with the British is they frequently have | stark rival differences in cultural identity based on | which part of which city they live. | nmstoker wrote: | Not exclusively a British idiosyncrasy, given gangs and | tribal habits elsewhere, but you're quite right that we | Brits do take to various ways of distinguishing ourselves | on sometimes questionable grounds! Location, education | level, schools, universities, colleges within | universities, accents, vocabulary, class, sports | affiliations, it's endless! | kazen44 wrote: | same goes for many other places in europe aswell. | (netherlands, germany, france etc). | | just look at football rivalries to get the idea. | pessimizer wrote: | 14 miles in British is something like 200 miles in | American. | Curzel wrote: | Agree... only issue might be managers and supervisors coming | from manufacturing in Asia, they will have to re-learn how to | treat workers, but I am hopeful | the_only_law wrote: | Wasn't there a documentary about this or something? I swear | I've seen this premise play out somewhere. | droidist2 wrote: | Maybe American Factory (2019) or Gung Ho (1986). The latter | isn't a documentary though. | the_only_law wrote: | I think the former was it. I only caught clips of it, but | the previous comment basically summed up what I saw. | bobthepanda wrote: | I mean, Toyota and Hyundai make cars in the South, so that | particular lesson has been learned before | okdood64 wrote: | Are we lumping up modern Japanese, Korean and Taiwanese | culture into one now? | triceratops wrote: | Surely in terms of _work_ culture they 're more similar | to each other than any of them are to North American work | culture? That's the culture we're all talking about here. | pm90 wrote: | Why would it lead to dropoffs in quality? I think u are | underestimating how much ingenuity workers of all cultures have | when its encouraged. Considering the strength of American | research universities, I believe that we might see gains in | quality and productivity. | madrox wrote: | I think OP is agreeing with you | dirtyid wrote: | Since there's several car manufacturing comparisons of American | manufacturing adapting to East Asian manufacturing culture, I | feel like there's consensus that Japanese built cars still have | tighter QC than ones built in North America. Better fit etc, | the kind of details in semi and would compound when moving from | millimeters to nanometers. My understanding is the commitment | for semi technicians / equipment engineers are also much more | rigorous, people being practically married to their stations. | Hard to say if high-end chip manufacturing processes refined | under East Asian sweatshop work culture that's still better | than the alternative can be adapated to west. | | Which is not to say American's can't make chips, perhaps with | less efficiency. Which ultimately doesn't matter because semi | is being elevated to critical strategic industry and the | governemnt's money printer is going to keep US fabs open | regardless of how competitive US fabs are. | mensetmanusman wrote: | It's true that Americans are less likely to work 16 hours days | with low pay. | | The issue is that the Asian work culture in the tech industry | is not sustainable, as seen from their demographic replacement | rates. They are burning too hot and the culture will change or | they will disappear. | tuatoru wrote: | Yeah, the next decade is going to be interesting to watch. | | In Taiwan, for instance, the working age population peaked | just five years ago[1], so I doubt that the fact that their | worker shortage is permanent and going to get worse has yet | sunk in the brains of the management and political class in | Taiwan. | | Give it ten years, they might start understanding what's | going on. Based on China's and Japan's responses, they'll | have no idea what to do. | | 1. https://population.un.org/wpp/Graphs/Probabilistic/POP/20- | 64... | logicchains wrote: | >As an outsider, it seems pretty clear that the rejection to | the industry is more about the cultural mismatch than it is to | the actual work needing to be executed. | | Look at Intel. It's a western company, but it famously fell | behind its competitors due to offering comparatively shit pay | and conditions to its staff, so the best people left. The | problem is hardware company culture, not Asian company culture. | | Apple's M1 is an example of what a company that compensates its | staff fairly can achieve in hardware. Hardware companies need | to get the idea out of their head that they can pay people shit | (even when they've got huge monopoly profits like Intel had) | and still expect to remain competitive. | [deleted] | joe_the_user wrote: | _Look at Intel. It 's a western company, but it famously fell | behind its competitors due to offering comparatively shit pay | and conditions to its staff, so the best people left._ | | As far as I know, working in a non-chip part of Intel in the | 90s, the place was always an abusive sweatshop except maybe | for some top people. And Intel isn't some failed from the | start enterprise - they're currently third or so in a long, | long competition among fabs, chip-makers and etc. They had a | long, long successful run while being awful. | | Essentially, model the of gaslighting, abusing and discarding | people works great as long as a company can keep their | employee's illusions alive and/or trapping them so they have | no choices regardless. | | As far as I know, Apple pays well compared to the US median | for a job but poorly relative to other FANG companies. Plenty | of tales of abuse and secrecy exist in Apple but plenty of | people assert the virtues of working there and show great | loyalty. | | Which is to say these practices are very common in globally | competitive markets. A company that pays well and inspires | great loyalty and hard work from it's employees can always be | undercut by a company that pays shit and still inspires great | loyalty and hard work from it's employees. And if the model | falls-apart, it can be rebuilt elsewhere (this is the | problem/challenge of markets that are truly global). | klyrs wrote: | Hot take, apparently: VHDL/Verilog developers should make 5x | what JavaScript developers make, and not the other way | around. | tester756 wrote: | Hmm | | In my country there are probably 2? 3? serious semico | companies | | And shitton of JS-using companies | | Maybe this explains why embedded/hardware/firmware devs are | underpaid? | dougabug wrote: | If it weren't for pesky things like supply and demand. | | If the pay is so low, it's kind of curious that the supply | doesn't drop. | JimmieMcnulty wrote: | Just to be clear, I make no value judgement about Asian | cultural norms w/r/t chip manufacturing, my comment is merely | meant to suggest the employment experience probably will be | adjusted to fit American cultural mores, so the concern that | few Americans would want these jobs isn't entirely fair. | | I am entirely unqualified to judge cultural | advantages/disadvantages in the manufacturing industry. | BeetleB wrote: | Apple's M1 is an irrelevant comparison. Apple doesn't run a | fab. Yes, Intel lost a lot of chip designers, etc, but the | submission is about fab related work, which Apple is not | involved in. | mensetmanusman wrote: | Intel lost because of their business model. TSMC was making | an order of magnitude more chips at far lower margin and all | those manufacturing runs/experiments let them advance that | much faster. | nightski wrote: | Isn't M1 manufactured by TSMC? Are you saying TSMC has good | pay and treats it's workers great? (it might I honestly don't | know). | KerrAvon wrote: | I'm not taking a position either way, butI believe the | poster is talking about the design/integration phase. | [deleted] | mikewarot wrote: | Alignment of incentives is how you get people motivated. If | you're married to a process line, you should get a cut of the | profits that specific line makes, and that cut should go up over | time. ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2022-09-02 23:00 UTC)