World’s Largest Chip Maker Rethinks Security, Responding to Mounting Pressures on Hiring and Expansion

HSINCHU, Taiwan—For decades, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., the world’s largest chip manufacturer, has been notorious for its extreme culture of secrecy and security, designed to both prevent cyberattacks and to ensure that employees and outsiders don’t steal information about the company’s sophisticated manufacturing techniques.

But the company has started to relax some of its cumbersome workplace security restrictions as it struggles to attract talent and retain existing workers, current employees say. The new policies allow engineers on the job to wear Apple Watches and to use work-issued devices to stream YouTube and Netflix, access Facebook and Instagram, and listen to podcasts on Apple and Spotify, all of which the company previously banned for employees at work, the employees say.