[US Investment Company 'Visa' Challenge] ① Semiconductor US Factory Faces Urgent Staffing... Korean Work Visa Only '1%'

Biden Administration's Visa Benefits Virtually Nonexistent Over 3 Years
Local Factories Like Samsung Need Partners for Operations
Visa Risks Likely to Increase if Trump Elected

Domestic companies building new factories in the United States are facing an emergency in securing local workforce. Under the U.S. 'America First' policy, the establishment of local factories by semiconductor and secondary battery companies is growing unprecedentedly, but after completion, they are encountering situations where they cannot properly secure personnel. To improve production efficiency in advanced processes such as semiconductors and secondary batteries, yield improvement work by experts who are well-versed in the processes is essential. Especially if former President Donald Trump, who advocates for nationalism after the U.S. presidential election at the end of this year, is re-elected, pressure for local investment is expected to intensify, making the workforce issue a critical challenge to resolve.

Samsung Electronics Texas Taylor Foundry (semiconductor contract manufacturing) factory site. [Photo by Samsung Electronics] [Image source=Yonhap News]

The biggest obstacle to workforce supply is visa issues. A work visa is essential to work at production facilities, but the related visas issued to Korea are severely insufficient. According to the U.S. Department of State, as of 2022, the U.S. government issued 206,002 H-1B visas worldwide across 201 countries. Among these, only 2,140 visas were issued to Koreans, accounting for just 1.04% of the total. The H-1B is a professional work visa that allows workers to work stably in the U.S. Even when expanding the scope to a five-year period from 2018 to 2022, the situation remains the same. Considering that Korean companies invested $55.5 billion (about 74 trillion KRW) in the U.S. during the three years after President Joe Biden took office, the domestic industry evaluates that the benefits of H-1B visa issuance are practically nonexistent.

The difficulty in issuing work visas is linked to the U.S. policy focus on job creation and anti-immigration stance. In October 2020, the Trump administration implemented a system allocating H-1B visas based on income ranking. This was to prevent poor foreign immigrants with professional degrees from entering the U.S. labor market. Most companies affected by visa issues are subcontractors of large corporations. While large corporations face few restrictions through intra-company transfer visas (L1), subcontractors that cannot assign expatriates must obtain H-1B work visas.

The subcontractor visa issue is directly connected to the operation of large corporations' factories. After building manufacturing facilities, process adjustments such as production capacity and yield are essential. This is not a problem that can be solved by sourcing personnel locally. The CEO of semiconductor materials and equipment company A said, "If specialized visas for subcontractor experts are not issued at the level of large corporations' L1 visa issuance, significant problems will arise in local factory equipment procurement, securing production capacity, and improving product performance at U.S. subsidiaries."

Samsung Electronics is building a foundry (semiconductor contract manufacturing) plant worth $17 billion (about 22 trillion KRW) in Taylor, Texas, aiming for mass production of 4nm (nm: one-billionth of a meter) products this year. The Taylor plant spans approximately 5 million square meters (1.5 million pyeong), about four times larger than the Austin plant. According to the economic impact report announced by Samsung Electronics Austin Semiconductor Production Corporation (SAS) in October last year, the direct employment at the Austin campus is 4,377 people. The number of construction workers for the Taylor foundry plant alone exceeds 4,600. The number will increase further when including future direct hires.

In the case of secondary battery equipment companies mainly dealing with LG Energy Solution and Samsung SDI, about 20% of their 500 engineers, including subcontractors, are sent to the U.S., totaling 90 to 100 people. It usually takes more than a year from delivering equipment to U.S. clients to supporting mass production. Subcontractor employees must enter the U.S. with business visas (B1) or travel visas (ESTA - Electronic System for Travel Authorization). While B1 visas guarantee a 90-day stay in the U.S., work participation is restricted, and ESTA visa holders cannot work at U.S. subsidiaries. If caught working on-site by authorities, they are immediately deported. Ultimately, they risk dangerous situations to operate local factories.

An anonymous subcontractor CEO said, "If it is difficult to replace a person whose B1 stay period has expired, they return home and re-enter a few days later, but during re-entry, U.S. airport immigration sometimes forcibly sends them back, questioning 'Why do you come so often?'" He added, "In the industry, there is a burden that once entry is denied, one can never enter the U.S. again, but they still apply for visas."

To reduce U.S. visa risks, economic organizations such as the Korea Economic Association and companies are mobilizing all diplomatic channels in the U.S. government and political circles. This is because it may become more difficult to push forward depending on the results of the U.S. presidential election in November. At the second meeting of the 'Global Economic Issues Response Executive Council' hosted by the Korea Economic Association last month, a representative from a large corporation requested Trade Negotiations Director General Jeong In-kyo and others to "make diplomatic efforts to increase the issuance of H-1B visas to Koreans." The event was attended by 19 businesspeople, including Samsung Electronics Vice President Yoon Young-jo, POSCO Vice President Kim Kyung-han, and Hyundai Motor Executive Director Shin Seung-gyu.

Professor Choi Sung-ryul of the Department of Electrical Engineering at KAIST said, "Since many subcontractors must enter the new Samsung foundry plant in Taylor City along with the foundry itself, resolving subcontractor visa issues is an important matter even from Samsung Foundry's perspective," adding, "Because the U.S. government often decides how much visa allocation to increase for each country, diplomatic authorities must take the lead and actively negotiate."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.