Samsung Electronics is recruiting short-term dispatched workers among domestic employees ahead of the full-scale operation of its Taylor foundry (semiconductor contract manufacturing) plant in Texas, but participation is reported to be low, with some units seeing almost no applicants. Although the company needs to send skilled domestic workers to the site to install equipment and stabilize processes for the new fab, perception that compensation for the dispatch is not significant compared with the high workload appears to have had an impact.
According to the industry on the 14th, the Samsung Electronics DS (semiconductor) institutional sector recently began recruiting short-term dispatch personnel for three or six months among domestic employees to prepare for operating the Taylor fab. The recruitment period, target pool, and operating method vary by unit.
It is reported that some units saw almost no applicants for dispatch. Some units offered separate incentives, such as giving extra credit in performance evaluations to dispatched workers. However, it is understood that employees who do not apply for dispatch are not disadvantaged in personnel evaluations.
Dispatched workers are provided with a single-occupancy accommodation and a personal vehicle for their stay in the United States. Separately, they are said to receive a daily subsistence allowance of about $80 on average. A simple calculation over six months puts the allowance at about $14,400, roughly around 20 million won.
Even so, employees say the dispatch terms are not attractive. As the Taylor fab has finished construction and entered the setup phase of installing equipment, frequent weekend and overtime work is expected for on-site dispatch personnel. There is also the burden of living apart from family for 3 to 6 months.
A person familiar with internal affairs at Samsung Electronics said, "During a fab setup period, weekend work is virtually unavoidable, and there is bound to be a lot of nighttime and overtime work," and added, "Considering the workload and the need to stay overseas for an extended period, quite a few employees do not see significant monetary merit."
Living conditions are also cited as a reason for hesitancy to apply. Taylor is a small city northeast of Austin, Texas, and compared with the Austin semiconductor business sites that Samsung Electronics has operated, the living infrastructure is limited. However, the willingness to apply for dispatch reportedly varies widely by unit.
The Taylor fab is a key production base for reviving Samsung Electronics' foundry business. Samsung Electronics announced in 2021 that it would invest more than $17 billion in Taylor to build a new foundry plant. Although the operation schedule was delayed from the original plan, the introduction of production equipment and preparations for operation have ramped up this year. In last month's second-quarter earnings release, Samsung Electronics said, "Taylor Fab 1 is proceeding with preparations for operation in 2026 as planned," and noted it would gradually expand production capacity for 2-nanometer (nm; one-billionth of a meter) technology.
The Taylor fab will also handle Tesla's next-generation artificial intelligence (AI) semiconductor volume that Samsung Electronics secured last year. In July last year, Samsung Electronics disclosed that it had signed a foundry contract worth $16.5 billion. Tesla CEO Elon Musk later said Samsung's Taylor plant would produce Tesla's next-generation AI6 chips. The contract runs until 2033.
A new semiconductor plant cannot immediately start mass production just by completing the building and clean room and bringing in production equipment. After equipment installation and setup, process conditions must be optimized and production yield must be raised during trial production. In this process, the know-how of engineers who have experienced the same or similar processes on existing domestic production lines is crucial.
In particular, because the Taylor fab is a base for Samsung Electronics to regain advanced foundry competitiveness, early process stabilization is important. Separate from preparing to operate Taylor Fab 1, Samsung Electronics also plans to start construction of Taylor Fab 2 at the end of this year and begin mass production in 2030. The company says expanding advanced-process capacity is necessary due to growing AI demand.
An official in the semiconductor industry said, "For a new overseas fab, it is inevitable that skilled personnel from headquarters and existing production bases will be deployed for a considerable period during the initial setup," and added, "With investment in semiconductor production facilities rising simultaneously in the United States, it is not easy to secure enough skilled engineers locally in a short time, so how to stably deploy domestic personnel can be important in the initial ramp-up process."