Battery talent shortage worsens… Chinese masters and doctoral degree holders’ housing prices also supported, Korean manpower going overseas

by times news cr

2024-07-12 13:24:05

[도전받는 K배터리]

Korean battery companies reluctant to work in local areas
“Relaxing regulations in the metropolitan area for R&D”

Dong-A DB

As international competition surrounding the battery industry intensifies, domestic companies are complaining about a lack of specialized personnel. In China, the government directly provides incentives to master’s and doctoral degree holders and companies and universities operate joint research institutes, but in Korea, only a limited number of people are produced through some specialized graduate schools.

According to the industry on the 11th, China aims to maintain the proportion of master’s and doctoral degree holders in major new energy industries, including batteries, at over 20% through the ‘National New Energy Policy’. Local governments also directly provide subsidies to talents and manage professional manpower by region. In the case of Changzhou City, when a battery expert with a doctorate purchases a house, they are provided with 250,000 yuan (about 47 million won) in cash support and loans of up to 1 million yuan. There are also many cases in which national universities and private companies jointly establish research institutes and appoint businessmen as directors, such as the SJTU Future Technology University jointly established by CATL and Shanghai Jiao Tong University, and the Advanced Battery Joint Research Center of Guo Xuan and Fudan University.

On the other hand, in Korea, the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy is only supporting master’s and doctoral degree holders in specialized graduate schools for batteries and other industries with a total budget of 18.7 billion won over five years. Park Cheol-wan, a professor in the Department of Automotive Engineering at Sejong University, pointed out, “Even if four specialized graduate schools produce 10 to 15 master’s and doctoral degree holders a year, it’s only a few dozen. Even those are going overseas, so it’s not enough.”

The three battery companies have their main production bases in Cheongju, North Chungcheong Province (LG Energy Solution), Seosan, South Chungcheong Province (SK On), and Cheonan (Samsung SDI), so there is also the problem that excellent talents are reluctant to work there. There are opinions that while expanding incentives for attracting people from the provinces, the regulations on location in the metropolitan area for R&D should be relaxed. A battery industry insider said, “Most excellent personnel are reluctant to leave the metropolitan area,” and “It is urgent to come up with countermeasures that allow the establishment and support of core industry R&D bases in the metropolitan area.”


Reporter Kwak Do-young [email protected]

#Battery talent shortage#New energy policy

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2024-07-12 13:24:05

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