"If you don't like working in shifts, you shouldn't be in this industry," TSMC Chairman Mark Liu said in response to criticism of the chipmaker by U.S. employees. Ouch.

According to Fortune (via Tom's Hardware), TSMC currently has a mere 27% approval rating from US employees. By way of comparison, Intel's approval rating is 85%.

Some quotes from the other side of the employee spectrum by TSMC's chairman include. One American employee is quoted as saying, "I can't stress enough how brutal the work-life balance is here."

Nevertheless, Fortune notes that TSMC's rating is the result of only 91 reviews posted on the website Glassdoor. Intel's rating is the result of tens of thousands of reviews.

To get a sense of how TSMC operates in its home country of Taiwan, Fortune spoke directly with employees. One employee stated that it is "impossible" for mid-level managers to express their opinions to upper management." It is simply not possible." The same employee said workers are afraid to ask for overtime pay they should be paid.

Meanwhile, according to Focus Taiwan, TSMC Chairman Liu said that U.S. employees are not expected to work to the same standards as their Taiwanese counterparts and that their expectations for the work environment are debatable. However, Chairman Liu then added the bombshell that anyone who is not willing to take "shifts" should not enter the industry.

All of this is in the context of TSMC's $40 billion investment in two production facilities in Arizona, the first of which will be operational next year and the second in 2026.

TSMC expects to produce chips at the 4nm and 3nm nodes. This has led to speculation that GPUs and CPUs from AMD, Nvidia, and others may be manufactured in the US. It has been a very long time since high performance GPUs in particular have been manufactured in the US.

It is unclear how this will affect TSMC's plans in the US. However, judging by the uncompromising comments made by TSMC's chairman, the company may have a few lessons to learn about public relations management.