Taiwan Semi to hire 3,000 engineers amid expansion

“We are increasing our capacity, so we need new blood,” JH Tzeng, spokesman for the Hsinchu, Taiwan-based company said by phone yesterday. Some of the new workers will replace outgoing personnel, he said, without specifying how many may leave the company during the year.

Taiwan Semiconductor, which makes chips for Qualcomm Inc. and Texas Instruments Inc., will this year increase its budget for factories and equipment beyond the US$2.7 billion it forecast in October that it would spend for 2009, Chairman Morris Chang said Dec. 4. The company faces increasing competition from Globalfoundries Inc. which said yesterday it plans to expand its production capacity amid a rebound in the global chip market.

Semiconductor manufacturing as well as research and development pose the most pressing personnel needs, while Taiwan Semiconductor also wants to hire in the fields of solar energy and lighting, the company said in an e-mailed statement.

The shares rose 0.6 percent to close at NT$63.2 in Taipei, compared to a 1.1 percent advance in the benchmark TAIEX index.

TSMC's diversification beyond chipmaking was highlighted by the company's Dec. 9 announcement that it will pay about NT$6.2 billion for a 17 percent stake in Taipei-based Motech Industries Inc., Taiwan's largest solar-cell manufacturer.

TSMC employed 20,566 people as of the end of September, according to Bloomberg data. Its sales are expected to climb 23 percent this year to NT$362 billion, according to the median of 22 analyst estimates compiled by Bloomberg. That compares to an 11 percent decline last year to NT$296 billion.

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