TSMC's 2019 employee income hits NT$1.97 million, No. 14 among IC firms

Taipei, June 2 (CNA) The average income earned by employees of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC), the world's largest contract chipmaker, totaled about NT$1.97 million (US$65,667), the 14th-highest among the integrated circuit (IC) companies listed in the local equity market, the Taiwan Stock Exchange (TWSE) said Tuesday.

Data compiled by the TWSE, where TSMC shares are traded, showed that the aggregate income earned by the chip giant's employees hit NT$86.91 billion last year and after being divided by its workforce of 44,050, the average income stood at NT$1.973 million.

The average income includes basic wages, bonuses and stock dividends, according to the TWSE.

In 2019, TSMC remained the most profitable company in Taiwan, reporting NT$345.26 billion in net profit, down 1.7 percent from a year earlier.

Amazing Microelectronic Corp., an electrostatic protection IC designer, took the top spot in average employee income among the IC firms listed in Taiwan last year, with the figure hitting NT$2.968 million, TWSE data showed.

Smartphone chip designer MediaTek Inc. came in second for average wages, with average employee income reaching NT$2.921 million, followed by sensor IC designer PixArt Imaging Inc., for which the average employee income stood at NT$2.913 million, the data indicated.

The IC firms in which their employees received more than NT$2 million in average income, taking the spots between 4th to 12th are Aspeed Technology Inc., Realtek Semiconductor Corp., Novatek Microelectronics Corp., Phison Electronics Corp., Asmedia Technology Inc., Global Unichip Corp., Rafael Microelectronics Inc., Egis Technology Inc. and ASE Technology Holding Co.

Among the top 12, only ASE is an IC packaging and testing services provider, while the others are IC designers.

eMemory Technology Inc., an IC intellectual property supplier, took 13th place, handing out an average income of NT$1.995 million per employee last year.

It is not unusual for IC designers to pay their employees high compensation on average due to their smaller number of employees, while TSMC and ASE, which both have a larger number of workers on their production lines, tend to report lower average incomes.