The Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) predicts that 114,800 new jobs will be created in the U.S. semiconductor industry by 2030. However, it expects more than half of those jobs to go unfilled. Of the 67,000 vacancies, nearly 27,300 are pegged for engineers at the bachelor’s, master’s, and Ph.D. levels — and that’s just for one (extremely critical) industry. Across the U.S. economy, SIA predicts 273,000 engineers will be missing. It seems engineers aren’t earning degrees fast enough to meet demand. Plus, each year, thousands of international students get their degrees and get out of Dodge to work in other countries.
Historical semiconductor workforce and projected 2023–2030 gap. Image: SIA
As part of the CHIPS Act, the Department of Energy (DOE) is on the hook for helping develop a skilled workforce to support semiconductor manufacturing. DOE aims to increase STEM professionals and provide more opportunities for minorities and community college graduates. It’s also supposed to leverage “programs that facilitate collaboration between and among teachers at elementary schools and secondary schools served by local educational agencies,” according to Section 10111.
Now, I live in a state where local school districts can’t pass levies to keep their buildings open and teachers employed, and the state legislature is trying to dramatically slash funding for public schools. In my state, taxpayers aren’t happy with how the other DOE manages their money, and parents and teachers are worried about their children’s education and future. Mind you, my state is also the new home for cutting-edge fabs that cost billions of dollars to build and are poised to strengthen the U.S. semiconductor supply chain.
How are we to develop a skilled technical workforce, from kindergarten through college, when we can’t even agree on bankrolling our schools? What underfunded community could possibly pump out enough engineers to fill the gaps?
2030 is a mere five years away. That’s not much time, yet a lot can change, and already is with the new administration. (It’s also 15 years after Doc and Marty tried to fix the future to prevent Marty’s son from screwing up his life while severely screwing up the space-time continuum in the process. I don’t recommend we take that route, and if you don’t understand the reference, I suggest you stream “Back to the Future” and its sequel immediately.)
I’m quite perplexed. SIA proposes fantastic recommendations to help close the workforce gap and get more folks into engineering degree programs and jobs. The CHIPS Act touts lovely prose on how government, academia, and industry can perform triple axles during the economy’s fluctuations and gracefully land on their feet, strides ahead of the rest of the world.
So, why is my son’s school closing? Why is my state denying millions of dollars to public education while multi-billion-dollar fabs are being constructed? There seems to be a disconnect here. Perhaps the most hopeful option is to dust off the old flux capacitor, go back to 2015, and just buy shares of Nvidia when it was dirt cheap. That should fund an engineering education quite well.
This editorial appeared in the Design World February 2025 issue.
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Sources:
1. Chipping Away: Assessing and Addressing the Labor Market Gap Facing the U.S. Semiconductor Industry
2. 2024 State of the U.S. Semiconductor Industry
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Filed Under: NEWS • PROFILES • EDITORIALS, Semiconductor manufacture, Trends
