Hiding behind "it's complicated" is an over-used excuse to avoid a more critical look at a problem.
A one year point is a crude approximation, but it does illustrate the order of magnitude mismatch between what they could pay their employees vs what they actually pay them, which was the short point being made.
More broadly, TSMC had no problem shelling out $9.9 billion to shareholders that same year (or $123,000+ per employee). So the argument of saving every penny because of the "capital intensive" nature of their business is also out the door.
And complaining about a single year estimate in the case of TSMC is barking up the wrong tree. They've had net incomes in the billions at least since the beginning of the 2000s.
So no, in the case of TSMC, they have no reason to pay wages below what is considered a "living wage" in Phoenix, Arizona.
Our markets, not even remotely isolated to semiconductor, are saturated in these bloated old businesses that are running on the razor's edge of financial ruin, yet every quarter are paying out catastrophic amounts of money in stock buybacks and generous compensation packages for the executives running them into the ground. It's beyond fucking parody at this point.
Also I wonder what the excuses will be once all the underdeveloped nations do what China did and actually develop. We have a finite number of exploitable countries on the planet with workers willing to work for pennies to assemble products. At SOME POINT this party is going to end, it has to.
The effect of globalization is that the west is bringing the rest of the world over the poverty line at the cost of deteriorating ourselves. Hard to say how this will end.
A one year point is a crude approximation, but it does illustrate the order of magnitude mismatch between what they could pay their employees vs what they actually pay them, which was the short point being made.
More broadly, TSMC had no problem shelling out $9.9 billion to shareholders that same year (or $123,000+ per employee). So the argument of saving every penny because of the "capital intensive" nature of their business is also out the door.
And complaining about a single year estimate in the case of TSMC is barking up the wrong tree. They've had net incomes in the billions at least since the beginning of the 2000s.
So no, in the case of TSMC, they have no reason to pay wages below what is considered a "living wage" in Phoenix, Arizona.
https://livingwage.mit.edu/metros/38060