Running Joint Curricula with Colleges to Secure Workforce
Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix are planning to train 1,160 future employees for five years to come by joint curricula with colleges. This is because the manpower shortage in the industry until 2031 is estimated at no less than 30,000 persons and the domestic graduate student output stands at 150 or so a year.
Samsung Electronics launched its curriculum at Yonsei and Sungkyunkwan Universities last year and KIAST and POSTECH this year. SK Hynix did so at Korea University last year and Sogang and Hanyang this year. Approximately 360 persons are supposed to graduate from the seven a year. The figure is not enough for both, and they are trying, with the Korea Semiconductor Industry Association, to persuade Seoul National University to join next year.
According to the two companies, the ultimate solution is not the curricula but the long-term national strategies including expansion of semiconductor-related departments at colleges in Seoul and Gyeonggi, where the number of new students cannot be increased with the colleges regarded as causing population concentration according to the Seoul Metropolitan Area Readjustment planning Act.
The expansion is one of the Presidential Transition Committee’s 110 national policy goals announced on May 3. Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix are planning to ask the incoming government to make it actually happen in the near future. One year ago, the current Moon Jae-in administration handled the matter and decided not to allow the expansion, saying that it is contradictory to balanced regional development.