26 June, 2023 – High skills jobs in India – Rajeev Chandrasekhar, Minister of Information Technology
The world is ramping up semiconductor consumption and manufacture, yet there will be a global and domestic lack of semiconductor talent, which will only worsen by the end of the decade. To avoid this, the three announcements made by Micron, Lam Research, and Applied Materials during Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to the United States will create over 80,000 employment in the semiconductor ecosystem, according to Rajeev Chandrasekhar, Minister of State, Ministry of Electronics and IT.
“Out of these 80,000 jobs, in my opinion, 65,000-75,000 will be clearly high capability jobs that are global standard jobs,” he said at Business Today’s B-School Conference. Whether it’s VLSI characterization, quality, manufacturing, or process.”
Applied Materials will also invest $400 million over four years in a new centre in India. In addition, throughout the first five years of operation, the centre is expected to support more than $2 billion in planned investments and create at least 500 new advanced engineering jobs, with the potential to create an additional 2,500 employment in the manufacturing ecosystem.
High skills jobs in India
This is only the beginning of India’s opportunities. Given the magnitude of job opportunities in the semiconductor ecosystem, both locally and globally, Minister Chandrasekhar advises students: “If you’re doing an electrical engineering degree, an electronics degree, a computer science degree, an MBA, or any other degree, you definitely need an industry specific domain specific skill.” So, I would always recommend to students that they pursue an MBA as well as a certification programme that connects their wide knowledge to a specific domain competency as a talent that they can learn from anyone.”
To give you a sense of scale, about 277,000 people today work in the chip-making sector in the United States—in R&D, design, production, testing, and so on.
To give you an idea of the scope, about 277,000 people today work in the chip-making sector in the United States—in R&D, design, production, testing, and so on. The Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) of the country estimates the new fabs to create 42,000 new permanent jobs by 2027, with an average of 185,000 temporary jobs (associated to building fabs) created annually from 2021 to 2026. This is only true in the United States. Every government, whether in the EU, Japan, China, South Korea, or Taiwan, wants to bring chip manufacturing in-house. India has also begun the process of developing its own silicon ecosystem. Vedanta and Tata are also looking at developing semiconductors in India. This validates the growing need and opportunity.
More so since semiconductor skill is in scarce supply. With more fabs on the way, the situation is anticipated to worsen by the end of 2023 and for the rest of the decade. According to Deloitte, the worldwide semiconductor workforce, which is expected to be more than 2 million direct employees in 2021, will need to grow by more than 1 million by 2030, adding more than 100,000 workers yearly.
