Electronics manufacturing will need over 4 mn people: Civil servant

Semiconductors emerging as 'big sector' in country as more investments come in, he says

India would over time need more than four million people employed in electronics manufacturing where semiconductors are becoming a “big sector”, said a senior civil servant on Wednesday.

S Krishnan, secretary in the Ministry of Electronics & Information Technology, was speaking at the India Digital Summit 2024 when he explained how the government is promoting semiconductor manufacturing.

“Semiconductors are a big sector; more companies are likely to come into the space. I think it is the space to launch over the next five to ten years. Our interest in semiconductors is open,” he said.

India’s semiconductor market is expected to be worth $100 billion by 2030 from about $40 billion now, according to the India Electronics & Semiconductor Association (IESA), 'Business Standard' reported last month.

India employs more than two million people in electronics manufacturing and may need more than four million in the sector, said Krishnan.

“We expect the digital economy to really grow at an increasing pace in the next few years. A $2 billion digital economy is what India seriously needs. The combination of emerging technology, which will be increasingly applied in multiple sectors, means that the possibility of India furthering this in the development part is something that we should be active in over the next five to ten years,” he said.

Global semiconductor companies have announced investments in India lately. Last year, Micron Technology set up a semiconductor assembly and test plant in Gujarat with a total investment of $2.75 billion. Micron’s plant will create up to 5,000 new direct jobs and 15,000 community jobs over the years.

Semiconductor equipment maker Applied Materials plans to invest $400 million in the next four years to build an engineering centre in Bengaluru.