Reports from Taiwan say that motherboard components such as MLCCs, solid capacitors and LAN connectors are suffering from tight supply due to the recent labour shortages in the region. The labour issue is said to have been caused by the fact that workers now can find jobs “near their homes in the hinterland”, making them less willing to travel for work.

Taiwanese companies have taken to sending representatives to the local railway stations to recruit employees such is the labour shortage.

The enormously well connected DigiTimes is quoting “sources from motherboard makers” who claim that first-tier motherboard makers such as Asus, Gigabyte, Micro-Star International (MSI) and Elitegroup Computer Systems (ECS) are all “aggressively placing orders to avoid the shortages causing any impact on their motherboard shipments”.

The report continues, “Currently, motherboard MLCCs are mainly supplied by Walsin Technology Corporation (WTC) and Yageo, while solid capacitors are supplied by Sanyo Electric and Chemi-con. LAN connectors are supplied by Foxconn Electronics (Hon Hai Precision Industry.”

The Digitimes sources though have said that, “Since the labour shortages are expected to improve significantly after April, while the motherboard market will have entered the slow season by then, the tight supply of components should improve.”

Component makers are concerned that their performance will be affected in the second quarter as the first-tier motherboard makers may stop orders suddenly to prevent inventory buildups.

An interesting report on the labour shortage can be found here by the way, apparently the situation is so serious that some major Taiwanese electronics companies have taken to sending representatives to the local railway stations to recruit and send the new employees to the factories immediately.