JW Insights: the annual average salary of IC designers in China’s semiconductor industry reached RMB392,100 ($58,585), a 17% increase in 2021

By Li Panpan

Chinese IC designers’ average annual salary was RMB392,100 ($58,585) in 2021, a year-on-year increase of 17.19%. The employee productivity of the IC design sector reached RMB2.837 million ($423,890), exceeding the industry average, and they ranked first among all types of semiconductor companies in China. These are the findings in the newly released JW Insights Talent Report.

The JW Insights Talent Report analyzed data from 135 Chinese listed semiconductor companies in 2021. It said that the total employee cost of 135 listed companies reached RMB85.1 billion ($12.72 billion).

The proportion of labor costs in company revenue in the whole industry showed a downward trend, with an average decrease of 4.42 percentage points, while that of the packaging and testing sector increased by 10.02% due to the decline of cheap labor in China.

The average annual salary in the manufacturing sector was RMB279,600 ($41724.48) and RMB279,300 ($41679.72) in the semiconductor equipment sector.  

The average salary of the 36 listed small and medium-sized enterprises with less than 500 employees is the highest. They pay more attention to attracting talents with higher salaries.

ASR Microelectronics (翱捷科技) ranked first with an average annual salary of RMB830,500 ($124088.58) among the 135 listed Chinese semiconductor companies, followed by VeriSilicon(芯原股份)’s RMB718,800($107,399) and 3PEAK(思瑞浦)’s RMB667,500($99734.05). 

Among the top 10, there are nine design companies and one equipment company.