Talent shortage drags down U.S. chip manufacturing expansion
The latest report points out that the shortage of highly skilled talents in the United States is continuing to intensify. This problem may drag down the construction progress of semiconductor factories with hundreds of billions of dollars invested across the country and restrict future chip production capacity. Unless the industry strengthens collaboration and the government continues to provide financial support, the United States' plan to revitalize local chip manufacturing will face major challenges. The new study, which included a survey of employers and was conducted by McKinsey & Co., the chip industry group SEMI and the National Science Foundation, found that the talent gap will be most prominent in Texas, California, Arizona, New York and Ohio, which are the areas where the new wave of semiconductor manufacturing projects in the United States are concentrated. The report predicts that by 2030, the high-skilled labor gap in the U.S. semiconductor industry will reach up to 157,000 full-time positions. The labor shortage is the latest obstacle facing chipmakers as they seek to expand their manufacturing footprint in the United States and reverse a decades-long shift of production capacity to Asia. At the same time, rising prices for raw materials such as copper, steel, and cement are also pushing up the construction costs of new facilities. These facilities are an important part of Trump's economic agenda. While the semiconductor industry is facing a labor gap, on the other hand, the artificial intelligence boom and companies' increased investment in AI are believed to have triggered a wave of layoffs in other industries, especially in the technology industry. Data from Challenger, Gray & Christmas, an organization that tracks corporate layoff plans, shows that since this year, nearly 102,000 announced positions have been attributed to artificial intelligence. The report warns that if the talent gap cannot be alleviated as soon as possible, not only the hundreds of billions of dollars of investment planned by the company may be affected, but also the federal subsidies established by the 2022 "Chip and Science Act" to improve domestic chip manufacturing capabilities in the United States may not achieve the expected results. The report recommends that government funding should continue to be increased, the semiconductor-related curriculum system should be improved, and students should be exposed to career development paths in the chip industry earlier. Taylor Roundtree, a McKinsey partner who participated in the study, said: "The industry's talent pool has long been in short supply. More and more people are realizing that the potential gap is so large that all parties must work together to deal with it." The report estimates that by 2030, 74% of the vacant jobs in the semiconductor industry will be concentrated in manufacturing, and 60% of the vacant positions will be engineering positions. The talent cultivation project implemented under the "Chip and Science Act" has increased the reserve of technical operators required for new factories, but it is far from filling the huge demand for manufacturing engineers and hardware engineers. The survey shows that nearly three-quarters of semiconductor companies said that recruiting engineers has become a difficult problem. The crux of the problem is that only about 3% of American engineering graduates eventually enter the semiconductor industry, and most people prefer to join higher-paying software fields, such as artificial intelligence. The "Chip and Science Act" has allocated US$200 million to the National Science Foundation to support talent training programs that will last until 2027, and rely on the "National Network for Microelectronics Education" to carry out student education and industry newcomer training. The report recommends maintaining this level of funding, but does not further discuss whether these projects should be extended or expanded. In order to attract more young people to pay attention to the semiconductor industry, various parts of the United States are also constantly trying new promotion methods. In Arizona, for example, elementary school students can get their hands on semiconductor manufacturing equipment and try on the white, dust-free "bunny suits" that fab workers must wear. The full-body protective clothing prevents tiny particles from contaminating the delicate chip manufacturing process. "The United States has not experienced such a large-scale expansion of semiconductor manufacturing in decades. Whether it is a high school guidance counselor or a college professor, for many people, this is not a career direction that they would naturally recommend to students," Rowntree said.