According to a research report released by an industry association on Tuesday, by 2030, the US semiconductor industry will face a shortfall of about 67,000 talents. The report was jointly compiled by the Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) and Oxford Economics.
The report predicts that the U.S. chip industry will employ 460,000 workers by the end of the decade, up from about 345,000 this year. However, at current school graduation rates, the United States cannot produce enough qualified people to keep up with this growth.
The report comes amid U.S. efforts to strengthen its domestic chip industry. On August 9, the President of the United States signed the Chip Act, which allocated funds for new manufacturing plants, research and development, and more. The U.S. Department of Commerce is responsible for administering the $39 billion manufacturing subsidies stipulated in the act, and companies such as Intel, TSMC and Samsung Electronics have said they will apply for these subsidies. The bill also provides a 25% investment tax credit for new chip factories worth $24 billion.
The factories will create jobs, SIA said. The expected shortage includes computer scientists, engineers and technicians, and about half of the jobs in the chip industry in the future will be engineers.
“It’s a problem we’ve had for a long time,” said SIA President John Neuffer. “But with the Chip Act and more manufacturing moving to the U.S., it’s becoming more prominent.”
The report also pointed out that the lack of science, technology, engineering and mathematics graduates in the United States is not limited to the chip industry. By the end of 2023, 1.4 million jobs could be unfilled.
