America is building chip factories. Now to find the workers
CHIPS Act passed last year will see the government dole out $50bn over the next half-decade. A baseline estimate from the Semiconductor Industry Association, a trade body, is that by 2030 America’s chip sector will face a shortage of 67,000 technicians, computer scientists and engineers, and about 1.4m such workers throughout the wider economy. Set this against the total of roughly 70,000 students who complete undergraduate degrees in engineering in America each year, and the scale of the deficit becomes apparent.
Whatever the precise gap, it marks the difference between foundries running at full capacity with labour bills under control, or ending up mired in high costs and low productivity. One of the sites at the centre of America’s ambitions offers an early glimpse of the problem. The Taiwanese Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), the world’s largest maker of chips, plans to invest $40bn in two factories in Phoenix, Arizona, greatly boosting America’s ability to craft large volumes of ultra-small semiconductors.
If it is successful, it will suggest that America can reclaim a position at the cutting-edge of chip production. The first of TSMC‘s factories was due to start production next year. But in July it announced that the launch would be put back to 2025 because it could not find enough workers with the expertise to install equipment at such a high-tech facility.
Mark Liu, TSMC’s chairman, said the firm would send technicians from its home base in Taiwan to train its American staff. “My nightmare is investing in all of this infrastructure and then not being able to build the workforce," says Shari Liss of SEMI Foundation, a microelectronics lobbying group. The fact that many share her worry is at least a
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