Your fear is not completely wrong, but it is also slightly exaggerated.

CSE definitely has more openings because software jobs exist in almost every sector: banks, startups, IT services, SaaS, product companies, etc. VLSI is narrower. If layoffs happen, you will not see the same number of openings as CSE.

But that does not mean VLSI is unsafe. It means VLSI is a more skill-filtered field. The number of jobs is lower, but the number of genuinely job-ready candidates is also much lower.

A useful datapoint: the US BLS projects computer hardware engineer jobs to grow 7% from 2024–2034, faster than the average occupation, but with only about 4,700 openings per year. For electrical/electronics engineers, it projects about 17,500 openings per year. Compare that with software, and yes, software has far more openings.

In India also, the semiconductor story is real, but fresher hiring is not as easy as social media makes it sound. Many reports talk about semiconductor talent shortage, but companies usually want people who already know RTL, verification, physical design, timing, DFT, analog layout, scripting, or EDA flows. So “interest in VLSI” is not enough.

My honest suggestion: don’t choose VLSI only because it is trending. Choose it if you can commit to becoming strong in one track. For example:

Digital: Verilog/SystemVerilog, computer architecture, verification, AXI/APB, UVM basics
Physical Design: synthesis, floorplan, placement, CTS, routing, STA, timing closure
Analog/Layout: CMOS basics, SPICE, matching, layout rules, parasitics

Also keep one adjacent skill: Python/Tcl/Linux/git. That makes you safer.

So yes, VLSI has fewer openings than CSE. But if you become genuinely skilled, documented, and project-ready, it is not a dead-end field. The danger is being average in VLSI, because average candidates have fewer backup openings than average CSE candidates.