According to the Financial Times, semiconductor manufacturing companies including Sony and Toshiba have warned that a shortage of engineers is threatening the Japanese government's efforts to revive the domestic chip industry.

To this end, Japan is working to increase investment in semiconductors as part of efforts to strengthen its economic security.

In an appeal to the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry last month, an electronics industry body said the five-year period to 2030 was "the last and greatest opportunity for Japan's semiconductor industry to regain its footing after years of losing global market share." ".

The Japan Electronics and Information Technology Industries Association (JEITA) said the industry's success depends on ensuring there are enough people to innovate and operate its chip factories. It is estimated that eight large producers will need to employ around 35,000 engineers over the next 10 years to keep up with the investment.

"It's often said that there is a shortage of semiconductors, but in fact there's a shortage of engineers," said Hideki Wakabayashi, a professor at Tokyo University of Science and head of the JEITA Semiconductor Council's Policy Proposal Working Group.

In the late 1980s, Japanese semiconductor companies spent huge sums of money to expand production, surpassing the United States for a little more than half the global market share. But after a bitter trade conflict with Washington, Japan ceded its dominance to South Korea, Taiwan and China. This led to mass layoffs of engineers following the 2008 global financial crisis. That's why, Wakabayashi believes, there aren't enough senior engineers today.

Flash memory maker Kioxia, manager of a JEITA working group member, said students studying semiconductors at university now tend to join financial institutions or tech companies because the chip industry has long lost its appeal.

To spur innovation and nurture potential employees, Toshiba, Sony and others are partnering with the nation's best science departments to spend more on chip research and recruiting.

Last month, the top leaders of both the U.S. and Japan pledged to strengthen semiconductor manufacturing capabilities and collaborate on the development of advanced chips

TSMC and Sony are building an $8.6 billion factory on the southern island of Kyushu and plan to employ about 1,700 workers for the plant. The government said it would subsidize up to 476 billion yen ($3.5 billion).

Kioxia and its joint venture partner, Western Digital, are spending nearly 1 trillion yen on a factory in central Japan to open in the fall, and will set aside another 1 trillion yen for a factory in northern Japan that is scheduled to be completed next year.

Renesas Electronics will invest 90 billion yen to reopen a factory closed in 2014 to expand production of power semiconductors used in electric vehicles.

"Before the mid-2010s, Japan was at odds with the rest of the world in terms of investment and hiring, even as the global chip industry doubled in size," said Recruit consultant Kazuma Inoue.

However, it is difficult to find workers, Inoue said. The number of electronic components, equipment and circuit workers aged 25 to 44 has dropped from 380,000 in 2010 to 240,000 in 2021, according to data released by Japan's Statistics Bureau.

"Most Japanese who study science are more interested in IT, not necessarily semiconductors," said Takashi Miyamori of Toshiba Electronic Devices.

"The competition for the best engineers in the world is going on, and we need to come up with ways to be competitive," he added.