▲ Chungbuk Semiconductor High School
As the artificial intelligence (AI) boom drives an unprecedented surge in South Korea's semiconductor industry, The New York Times (NYT) featured Chungbuk Semiconductor High School in Eumseong County, North Chungcheong Province, on June 26 (local time).
The newspaper introduced the school, which was designated as a Meister high school specializing in semiconductor equipment in 2010, as the oldest of the four such institutions in the country focused on the chip industry.
Located about two hours from Seoul, the school is equipped with dormitories for all 300 students and six simulated semiconductor facility training centers.
With the construction boom for AI data centers fueling a record-breaking period for the Korean semiconductor industry, led by Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix, interest in the school has surged.
The newspaper reported that inquiries for admission have more than tripled over the past year, and requests for visits from those seeking to learn from the school's operational model, including a crew from a Chinese state-run broadcaster, have been constant.
"I think our school has become the hottest school in Korea right now," Principal Seo Woon-seok told the NYT.
The NYT particularly highlighted the large performance bonuses recently received by employees at Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix, noting that landing a job at these two companies is often compared to "winning the lottery" due to the extreme difficulty.
It explained that each year, 20 top-performing first-year students at the school are selected for an internship program that includes scholarships from the two companies.
Other students go through a competitive nationwide recruitment process involving exams and interviews. One teacher noted that students prepare for these exams from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. every day for a month.
Seeing graduates return to the school and treat others to meals while talking about receiving hundreds of millions of won in performance bonuses serves as a moment that convinces current students that they made the right choice.
On the other hand, such scenes evoke complex emotions for teachers.
"It is not easy to hear a former student who has been working for a year talk about a performance bonus that is larger than my entire annual salary," Principal Seo said.
Meanwhile, the NYT also shed light on the uncertain job outlook behind the semiconductor industry's boom.
The newspaper noted that while the government has pledged to grow the Yongin Semiconductor Cluster into the world's largest high-tech chip hub through comprehensive support, and companies announced last year that Samsung Electronics would create 60,000 jobs over five years and SK Hynix up to 20,000 new jobs annually, some experts remain skeptical about the feasibility of these job creation targets.
The concern is that semiconductor manufacturing is a capital-intensive, rather than labor-intensive, industry, and as production processes become increasingly automated, the total number of jobs could actually decrease.
This concern is already becoming a reality for subcontractors.
A manager at XT, a maintenance subcontractor for Samsung Electronics, told the NYT, "Actually, it has become harder to hire new employees this year," adding that the trickle-down effect of the semiconductor boom barely reaches subcontractors.
"If equipment with advanced self-cleaning functions is introduced, our jobs might disappear in the future," the manager said, expressing anxiety.
(Photo: Captured from the Chungbuk Semiconductor High School website, Yonhap News)
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