Bloomberg
A growing nationwide shortage of high-skilled workers threatens to delay construction of billions of dollars in new semiconductor plants across the US and constrain future chip production unless the industry pools resources and the government keeps up funding, a new report said.The deficit is expected to be most acute in states such as Texas, California, Arizona, New York and Ohio, where many of the new facilities are being planned, according to new analysis including a survey of employers from McKinsey & Co, the chip industry group SEMI and the National Science Foundation. Altogether, the skilled labor deficit is projected to reach as much as 157,000 full-time workers by 2030, the study released on Tuesday showed.The dearth of talent risks stalling plans by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (台積電) to invest as much as US$265 billion in a dozen chipmaking and packaging facilities in Arizona, as well as Micron Technology Inc’s vision to spend US$100 billion on memory production in New York and Samsung Electronics Co’s logic chip facility in Texas. Even Intel Corp’s delayed US$28 billion investment in Ohio is set for shortages once production ramps up, the report said.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co’s fab in Phoenix, Arizona is pictured on March 3 last year.
