# Closing the Talent Gap in the Semiconductor Industry **Channel:** SEMI Foundation **Source:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sh159KKdAmY **Transcript page:** https://www.withtranscript.ai/video/Sh159KKdAmY ## Chapters - 0:00 — Opening Remarks and Webinar Purpose - 2:49 — National Importance of Workforce Planning - 11:01 — Study Framework and Research Questions - 13:57 — Demand Growth and Skill Shifts - 20:57 — Supply Gaps and Education Pipeline - 27:11 — Adjacency, Mobility, and Scenario Analysis - 37:20 — NNME Strategy and National Coordination - 42:44 — Audience Q&A and Closing Discussion ## Transcript **[0:00] Speaker A:** Well, thank you. Can you guys hear me? Okay. All right. I'm very sorry that we're running a few minutes late. We had a little bit of a technical challenge on our end, which happens sometimes, so. **[0:09] Speaker B:** Hello. **[0:10] Speaker A:** Good afternoon, everybody. Thank you so much for joining us today. Thank you for waiting for us to get this worked out on our end. **[0:16] Speaker A:** My name is Shari Liss and I am the Vice President of Global Workforce Development and Initiatives at semi. I get to oversee the Semi Foundation, Semi University, nnme, all of our regional work around the globe. I saw the list of folks here. I think I know a lot of you and I'm really excited that you could join us today on behalf of both the Semi foundation and the National Network for Microelectronics Education. We're excited to have you with us for today's discussion. **[0:43] Speaker A:** We want to first thank our partners at McKinsey and Company and Taylor, who's joining us today from there, as well as our partners at the National Science foundation and Irwin is joining from that front for their collaboration on this very important work. To everyone joining us from industry, education, workforce orgs, governments and the broader semiconductor ecosystem, thank you for joining us today. There has never been a time or more important time to talk about workforce. The US as we all know, is making historic investments in semiconductor manufacturing and in innovation. Right now, companies are expanding, new facilities are coming online, and advanced technologies like AI quantum and advanced packaging are accelerating demand. **[1:28] Speaker A:** But none of that growth, as we all know, is possible without people. We all know that people power, progress. So workforce becomes critically important in this work. Workforce has become one of the biggest and most defining challenges that faces our industry. And we also see it as one of our greatest opportunities. **[1:47] Speaker A:** And this challenge for us isn't just about filling jobs. It's about the long term workforce infrastructure that our country needs to remain globally competitive. The that means preparing technicians, engineers, researchers and manufacturing professionals, and really a zillion other roles, while creating more awareness of careers that many people still don't know exist. It also means education, industry and workforce systems must work together in ways that they haven't before. So today's webinar is designed to help ground that conversation in the actual data around this work. **[2:20] Speaker A:** So together with McKinsey and company, we've taken a comprehensive look at the national semiconductor workforce landscape, where the greatest workforce gaps exist and what it will take to actually work towards closing them. And just as importantly, we'll discuss what comes next and how organizations across the country can work together to strengthen the workforce pipeline. So if you have any questions today, we encourage you to drop them in the chat as they come up for you. We'll address as many as we can at the end of the session during our Q and A session. **[2:49] Speaker A:** With that, I am pleased to be joined by an outstanding group of leaders. **[2:54] Speaker A:** First, I'd like to introduce Erwin G. And Kandani from the National Science foundation, who has helped shape national investments in innovation and workforce development. He's leading our work with the NNME in partnership with the NSF and also leads the TIP directorate. We also have Taylor Roundtree with us from McKinsey, who led the landscape analysis and will walk us through the key findings and implications of that study. And also joined by Dr. Jennifer Ellis, who will discuss what these findings mean for the future of workforce development and how the National Network for Microelectronics Education is helping coordinate national solutions. And Jennifer serves as our NNME director on the SEMI foundation team. **[3:34] Speaker A:** So that is who's here today to address this incredible study and this opportunity and also to answer questions. So with that, I'd like to turn things over to Erwin to help us frame why this work is so incredibly important from a national perspective. **[3:50] Speaker A:** Is Irwin with us? **[3:53] Speaker C:** He's here. We just have to make sure he's elevated to panelists so he can speak **[4:00] Speaker A:** because we need. We. We need Irwin here, and if not, we'll. If we don't get him soon, we'll move to Taylor to start digging into the study and we can come back to Irwin as well. Oh, there he is. **[4:18] Speaker A:** Hi, Erwin. Thank you so much for joining us. **[4:21] Speaker B:** Absolutely. Can you guys see me? Hear me okay? **[4:23] Speaker A:** Yes. **[4:24] Speaker B:** Great. All right. So, Sheri, thanks for that framing and it's great to be with you and Taylor and Jennifer and everyone else today. So thanks to you all for organizing this session and thanks to everybody who's taking time out from. I know. Busy schedules. Everyone's super busy to find the time for this conversation, which we certainly at NSF feel is incredibly timely and also incredibly important. So I think it goes without saying you heard Sherry talk about this a little bit in her intro, just how important microelectronics are to the foundations of virtually every critical technology that we spend time talking about, whether it be artificial intelligence or advanced communications or high performance computing, advanced manufacturing capabilities. Ultimately, this really ties into national security and national competitiveness. **[5:07] Speaker B:** And at the same time, every bit as much as the microelectronics ecosystem in the United States is directly tied to economic competitiveness and technological leadership and national security, it's Also grounded on the workforce, the workforce that makes it possible. This is an industry that was born in the United States and for decades the US Was able to provide leadership that drove global innovation and economic growth and technological progress in the early days of this industry. I think it's fair to say that industry, in close partnership with universities and government, played a central role in being able to shape workforce development, defining the emerging skill needs, helping to build the talent pipelines, the pathways that allowed for the US leadership across the semiconductor ecosystem. But as this industry has become increasingly globalized and as our share of the manufacturing capacity has declined, costs have risen, other nations have made sustained and strategic investments. **[6:06] Speaker B:** And at the same time, I think that we've recognized that we need to do more when it comes to workforce development and talent creation to really bolster this industry going forward. **[6:17] Speaker B:** And so that is really the basis by which Congress had a number of conversations back in the 2020, 2021, 22, 2022 time frame, recognizing the importance of rebuilding domestic capability and capacity and the skilled workforce that it underpins, and how that's essential to regaining US leadership in semiconductors. And that is what ultimately led to statutory language by Congress in establishing a national network for Microelect, or nnme. This in many ways constitutes the National Science Foundation's flagship National Workforce Development Initiative for microelectronics. We have a number of other activities that are underway as well, but this is really the one that's centered around building a nationally connected ecosystem that brings together industry, universities, community colleges, professional societies, regional partners, stakeholders who really care deeply and intimately about workforce development to better align education with workforce demand, better expand experiential learning opportunities. We know just how important and vital they are to being able to provide talent with the exposure that they need to combine what they might be learning in a classroom setting with practical real world scenarios, and ultimately scale the sharing of curricula and best practices that have been proven, that exist and that have been proven, and that we really need to disseminate across the country. **[7:45] Speaker B:** So the NNME is less about funding whole cloth, new curricula and instructional material, much more about trying to leverage great rigorous efforts that have already come before it. Understanding what industry's needs are at the end of the day, and really trying to be able to bring workers closer together with those industries needs so that we have a talent base that's ready for jobs on day one and not one where we hire folks and then we have to spend 6 months, 9 months, 12 months having to retrain them on the job for the specific needs of the job as part of this broad scale effort around the National Network for Microelectronics Education, which various parts of the National Science foundation have helped support over the course of the last few years. Working together with the SEMI foundation, we were delighted to see the commissioning of this McKinsey analysis to really quantify current and projected semiconductor workforce gaps and really provide a data driven foundation for national workforce planning. **[8:44] Speaker B:** So we were really interested here in conducting that data driven workforce landscape analysis of the supply and the demand at the national, regional and state levels. Our objective here was to better understand where workforce developments are most needed and where they are likely to ultimately have the greatest impact as well. **[9:03] Speaker B:** And I think the point of this was to allow us to be able to identify the geographic areas, the geographic sectors, the types of jobs, as well as the types of training that are necessary to be able to understand where are the gaps and opportunities so that we can be much more strategic and evidence based at the end of the day in terms of the investment decisions that we're trying to make, I think it's fair to say that you can't make an investment at the level that we're making here, upwards of $200 million, largely through NSF, through appropriations from Congress, but also some contributions from our Partners at the U.S. department of Commerce as well. You can't make an investment of this scale and magnitude without first having a solid understanding of the workforce landscape. And so this analysis that you're going to hear Taylor talk about, we hope will provide and continue provide in the long term the evidence necessary to allow us to be able to do that prioritization of investments so that we can ensure that we're having the greatest impact with the dollars that we have and that we're guiding our approach via data as opposed to via assumptions that we might have, any one of us might have, even based off of years of experience in the field. **[10:12] Speaker B:** So, you know, as you listen to this conversation, this presentation, and then as we engage in a conversation, I think the most important thing from our perspective is to really be able to see the significant and persistent semiconductor talent gap that we have over the coming decade and the ways in which we can potentially mitigate that talent gap and how we see the enemy as a vehicle for being able to do so, particularly if we continue with our first principles of working very closely with industry and trying to understand industry's needs and being able to address those to the maximal extent possible. So, Sherry, I'm going to stop there in the interest of time and hand it back over to you perhaps to steer the next set of the conversation. **[11:01] Speaker A:** Thank you so much and thank you for joining us and for sharing your perspective. And I will turn things over to Taylor as a next step on this. And Taylor is going to share information about the study. So those of you asking, yes, we're going to be sharing, we're going to be recording this and sharing the recording as well as sharing the study itself. And the slides were just at the starting slide because it was just Irwin's opening. **[11:23] Speaker A:** So they are advancing now. If you can't see anything advanced, please let us know. Thank you. **[11:27] Speaker C:** Yeah. **[11:28] Speaker D:** So Sherry, thanks so much, Erwin. Really appreciate the, the intro, the context setting. I think, you know, you're exactly right. This is one of those questions I think folks have, have always grappled with. Especially when you, when you look at just the amount of growth that the industry is going to see in the U.S. i mean, I think exactly as you said, it's an industry that started here. Over time, a lot of manufacturing has, has cropped up at other places. **[11:53] Speaker D:** But then obviously with the, the massive investment in the industry by, by the federal government and by state and local governments as well, you know, what is the solve for that? I think, you know, you, but you hit on it. Sherry did as well. Is, is the people side. So if I kind of walk through the elements of the, of the report, basically we looked at five things. So one, what is the demand for talent and how is that organized and where is it? So when I say how is it organized? I mean both from a, you know, are we talking engineering demand, Are we talking technician demand, Are we talking computer scientist demand? But also which segment of the industry are we talking manufacturing? Are we talking design and R D? Are we talking capital equipment? So really looking at that, part two was looking at the supply. **[12:39] Speaker D:** So where does the talent come from today? Both from an educational program standpoint, from migration from other industries as well as looking at the, the locality of where that demand is. And you know, is there interstate migration that's going to help provide some of the supply? **[12:56] Speaker D:** And then all of that kind of boils down to okay, what does the gap look like once we, once we've looked at the supply? I mean, I think as, as everyone has alluded to here, it is short right now, projected to be short from what the demand is, how, how big is the gap and where is the largest and in what, you know, I would say talent pools, whether that's again, you know, a specific labor type or a specific segment of the industry then looking at, okay, based on what we see, what solutions exist today. I think Irwin's point was, was really astute on. We want to get to a point of understanding, you know, what's been done before, what's worked well, what can we augment and build upon rather than trying to create everything whole cloth net new and really understanding what's scalable, what's scalable about them and how could we adapt those programs. **[13:48] Speaker D:** And then the last part is really looking at trying to close the remaining gap that's there. So if we hop to the next **[13:57] Speaker B:** page, **[14:02] Speaker D:** You know, I think from a demand standpoint and I think this is not the first time we've looked at that and I will, I will just state that you know we looked at these numbers about two years ago and I would say the, the numbers are getting bigger. Right. I think a big portion of that. I think Irwin and, and Sherry both mentioned, you know, the continued growth of different, different segments of the markets, particularly AI. But we're seeing this number continue to grow and that's you know both a function of the manufacturing demand that's going to come from all the investments being made but also from you know, the R and D and equipment sector of the, of the industry. **[14:38] Speaker D:** So we see about 189,000 FTEs being demanded net new FTEs being demanded by 2030. And you know, I say roughly three fourths of that is concentrated in manufacturing. And that's you know all of that manufacturing related ad is going to be primarily in our fab intensive states. So you know, where we've seen all of these announcements crop up of new fabs and fab expansions coming, capital equipment accounts for a little under 10% and then the R and D and design is, is you know, close to 20, it's about 18%. You know I think the, to that point, you know, we're not seeing a very well spread out demand signal. It's very much concentrated in the high number of the fab heavy states. And the ramp timing of the FAB is going to create demand spikes, right? Like as a fab is coming online, once you get pretty close and you're starting to do your hook up and install, you're really starting to add a lot of your talent there. **[15:39] Speaker D:** And then that segment of the, the construction phase is going to be over pretty quickly and then you're going to be moving to high volume operations. So how that you're going to quickly see that demand peak as those fabs come online. **[15:50] Speaker D:** If we hop to the next page. So this is kind of how this looks over each year. And what we've done here is we've really tried to understand both from, you know, the number of fabs coming online, which is going to tie directly to your manufacturing segment. We've also tried to understand the pull in from equipment manufacturing, which is really looking at our, our equipment sector employment trends and then obviously using the split between engineering and technicians that we see in the market, how that's growing over time. And then, you know, again, I think the reason you see the cyclicality in the ads is primarily driven by when fabs are coming online. And so, you know, if we just look at the latest announcements and projections of when we think a lot of the fabs are going to be online, you'll see them coming online late 27 and early 28. **[16:42] Speaker D:** And that's why you see that demand for the manufacturing level, demand continuing to rise up in 28. You see a slight drop off in 29. That doesn't mean that we don't have any fabs coming online then, but that's just less of a volume and then you see that peak back up in 2030. One thing, you know, I won't go too deep in, but we did also look at several scenarios around. Okay, what are different scenarios that could happen in the industry and how much does that range some of these outcomes? I think we have some, some of those pages in the appendix that will go around. But if we hop to the next page here, you know, again, we're talking a cumulative 189,000. **[17:22] Speaker D:** As mentioned, we are very much concentrated in a few, few states, right? Texas, California, New York, Idaho, Arizona. **[17:34] Speaker D:** They're driving the most projected needs across both engineers and technicians. California, we're seeing a lot on the, the computer sciences demand in terms of like being the largest, but it is relatively modest and diffuse compared to the other two. And I will say, you know, we, in, in accompanying the raw analytics that we did, we did a number of surveys both with employers as well as with school programs and students themselves that have recently gone through programs. And you know, 73% of, of the folks in industry that responded said they had significant challenges to fill engineering roles today. And you know, so I think that, that this is not just a, a, an analytical exercise. This is becoming the reality. And even though we see the industry roughly at parity today, as we look forward, we're already seeing signs of the industry trends there. The other piece is important to note is that's baked into these numbers is we have a very, let's say, mature workforce in the semiconductor industry today in the United States. **[18:39] Speaker D:** And what I mean by that is we have a large population of folks approaching retirement. So there is a retirement projection and a yearly attrition projection included in these numbers. **[18:49] Speaker D:** And so I think that's why you're seeing, you know, again, you're already seeing folks reporting challenges, filling roles. So that's, that's just one thing I want to call out here if we hop to the next page. You know, I think the other, the other dynamic we're seeing is just a shift overall in the demand. So you know, I think we're seeing a lot of impact on hiring needs and obviously AI and automation taking the lion's share here. And so, you know, it's not only increasing demand but it's accelerating the changes in the skill mix. **[19:23] Speaker D:** And so what I mean by that is, you know, some of the traditional skill sets that employers were looking for five, 10 years ago are, you know, potentially not the same as what's going to be needed going forward. Right. You know, your core problem solving set of course is going to still be needed, but some of the hard skills are, you know, maybe changing in the world of AI. If we hop to the next page, you know, we've tried to take a look at that like across all the different roles in the industry of what could be mostly affected by automation. And what you see is it's the digital analytical and systems oriented skills that are going to probably be the most affected by automation and by AI. **[20:08] Speaker D:** You know, things that are on the far left here are much less exposure to automation as we progress on the right. Obviously we're getting to more and more exposure there. And so I think the interesting thing right is you see problem solving, it's called out right where the hand is actually. So great job on that one. It's, you know, yes, the way people solve problems may be changing, but it's by no means the one that's affected the most. And so I think that that's just one to call out. And then again we, we see some of the more, I would say manual processes like especially on constructing side, on the far left. So this is just something to think about in the context of how is the labor that we're going, that is going to be demanded going to need to look in the next five, six years, hop to the next page. **[20:57] Speaker D:** You know, from a supply side. I think the, the answer here is again, it's a pretty, it's pretty short. Right? I mean we're talking 62,000 versus 189,000. So you know, 127,000 short. **[21:12] Speaker D:** The interesting piece here is you see very different dynamics for engineers and technicians. For engineers, only 3% of engineering graduates enter the semiconductor industry. And so that has implications on where in the funnel do you want to address your programs? Because sure, we could advocate for massively increasing enrollment in engineering programs writ large across the country, but if, you know, only 3% of those folks are going to enter the semiconductor industry, that may not be the most effective way to do it. Also another factor that's not on here, but I think it's also important for us to understand is if we just look again, I'll take engineers in particular. **[21:55] Speaker D:** You have roughly 45 to 47% of engineering graduates that stay in STEM STEM careers afterwards. I mean, I myself am one of those folks who got away, right? So you know, it's, it's more of a systemic barrier in the United States to get, you know, as we're thinking about degree programs to make sure that we're getting the talent that's getting educated into these roles. The technician supply. I would say, you know, if we look at all of the chips funded programs and chips announced programs, there is a significant supply increase from all the planned programs and with their planned targets. **[22:38] Speaker D:** And then I think the supply situation changes gradually across our modeled scenarios. And so the, the ones we modeled basically were if there was a lower wafer demand, so for example, if there was a, an AI bubble that popped and so you know, that shifts down a lot of the AI related wafers. If we saw productivity gains in, in manufacturing sites, and so we didn't need as many people per fab, you know, changing design complexity, more, more talent constraints, etc. Across each of these scenarios, we didn't really see a significant change in the supply. It was really more on the demand. And so that, that's again, you know, a factor of just the longer education and career timelines that folks have. And then I think the last piece is, you know, adjacent industries could contribute a lot of incremental talent. And so what I mean by that is industries that are, you know, are there for like a maintenance tech, for example, could you take someone who had previously done helicopter aircraft maintenance and train them quicker than someone off the street or someone who has no experiential background and that kind of work to do maintenance on capital equipment in the semiconductor industry. **[23:52] Speaker D:** So how do we start to map through adjacent industries in same or similar job codes that you could then potentially migrate over so if we'll hop to the next page, we're trying to be cognizant of time here. You know, we, we see steady growth in the supply and that is educational pipelines, migration and a lot of the initiatives. Right. And so you know, I think the point here being if you look at the cumulative, about half of the cumulative workforce supply is coming from chips funded programs and announced programs that are underway at the local level. **[24:35] Speaker D:** Bachelor's degree folks entering the workforce account for roughly 70% of our of our graduate volume. But again I think they're expected to have a lower industry entry rate for the dynamics I mentioned earlier. Whereas you see, you know, Your Master's and PhD type profiles are more likely to actually go into industry. **[25:00] Speaker D:** The one piece there is, particularly in the US there is a large component of international students and masters and PhD programs. And so depending on, we did look at, you know, what level of international student retention just because you know, obviously there is a factor of folks educated here, some, some stay, some, some do not. What factor of that has an impact on, on the industry. But you know, again, I think main point being number is up and to the right, it's continuing to grow over time. Then the question becomes how do we continue to accelerate this. So if we up to the next one. **[25:39] Speaker D:** Here was an interesting piece that came out of the surveys. It wasn't immediately apparent from, from the analytics and it ties very well with what Erwin mentioned. Right. You know, we want programs that have folks ready to contribute from day one and not feeling like they, you know, not having to retrain them. And I think kind of the, the dichotomy of this is we surveyed quite a number of folks who were students in semiconductor related programs, both at the engineering level and at the technician level. **[26:09] Speaker D:** And 88% of them said that they felt moderately to extremely prepared to enter a semiconductor role post graduation. Flip that to the other side where we looked at hiring representatives in HR, both hiring managers and HR representatives in industry. And 83% said that they felt the existing programs were neutral or not that effective in developing workforce skills. And so I think kind of what we're seeing there is a lot of the educational programs today successfully build a foundational problem solving skill which gives the graduates the confidence to enter the workforce. But the employers are expecting a bit more role specific skills and seeing, you know, right now they're having to train them on the job to help them transition to full productivity. **[26:55] Speaker D:** And so I think kind of the, to Irwin's point, how do we start to bridge some of those gaps where industry could help work with education to help set up some of the programs to solve this. So let's keep going. **[27:11] Speaker D:** You know, again, the, the adjacent industries point I mentioned, like, look, if we look at the total amount of talent in currently employed in jobs that are adjacent to the semiconductor industry, especially for most of these states, there are large populations that could handle relatively easily the total semiconductor gap. Now I don't want to say that that is an easy thing to accomplish because these are folks that are employed in other industries and if you're courting them away, that means that that other industry is going to have a gap to fill. But what we do see is there is a lot of concentration in primary industries with higher skill adjacencies which could enable faster transition to semiconductor roles. And you know, I think like we've got an illustrative quote here where we talked with an engineering manager about how, you know, there are a lot of folks with engineering with electrical fundamentals that could transition over quite well and better than generalists. **[28:13] Speaker D:** So again, you know, the main point here also some of these states have quite a lot of the same states next to them, right? So you know, between Texas and Arizona, there's, you know, each of those is going to contribute to the other's neighboring pool. So there are some potential double counts if we start to look across this. So I wouldn't just add them all up down the, down the side. Let's keep moving on this one. You know, again, I think the difference here, I know I mentioned the supply differences between engineers and technicians. So engineering talent is pretty mobile, which I think is different from what we see from a lot of our technician talent. And so again, we did a survey of engineering students and recent engineering graduates and 86% of them said that they're moderate to high likelihood that they would be willing to relocate to a different region within the next three to five years years. **[29:04] Speaker D:** And so if we looked at why they would be willing to relocate, compensation and financial incentives were one clear advancement opportunity was another quality of life and then proximity to family. And you know, I think that that that is a bit unique in terms of the, the talent profiles we talked about because I think what we see is, is our technician population is a little bit different in that regard and that we don't see as wide of a geographical mobility for, for those folks. So I think again, kind of coming to fit for purpose solution. **[29:37] Speaker D:** We need to think about, okay, I probably have a very different answer for engineers than I do for technicians. So let's hop to the next one the future workforce needs. Right. So again we've modeled this across a number of scenarios. I kind of walked through what the scenarios were. **[29:55] Speaker D:** We still see even in the most bearish of demand cases a projected shortfall of 127,000 FTEs by 2020 30. And even when we get highly optimistic, that includes also being highly optimistic on productivity and migration and the success level of chips funded programs. The engineers do account for the majority of the unmet demand and the manufacturing roles within that are driving the majority of the shortages which is again consistent with the fablet demand growth. And then I think the fact that the gaps are relatively geographically concentrated **[30:35] Speaker B:** is **[30:35] Speaker D:** going to make that slow to resolve. Right. Like again given the dynamics of how relatively how small number of folks go into this industry. And I think Sherry even mentioned a great point that there is a little bit on just knowledge of the industry, the roles within it and what jobs are out there that you know, I think we, we as an industry continue to educate folks on. But given those kind of, I would say structural impediments of right now, it's going to take a little bit longer to solve a lot of these, these gaps. **[31:05] Speaker D:** So why don't we hop forward Again I think we can skip this one because it just kind of compares the supply and demand we talked about. **[31:17] Speaker D:** Same with this page. It's another cut, this is a little bit deeper dive where you can actually see the demand versus supply by role and by function. **[31:27] Speaker D:** And again I think we here, here we've gone, we've gone looked at the, the gaps by state. And so again I think it's not surprising the states that pop out are still very similar to the states that had the demand. You know, I think the, the manufacturing engineers and manufacturing technicians are the, the lion's share of the gap. I think where you start to see this a little bit different is California. You do want to call out the equipment manufacturing. So again our capital equipment folks just because of the heavy presence of that industry in, in California is where you start to see some of that pop out. But, but again by and large kind of the top 10 states account for the vast majority of the gap. We keep moving wanting to be cognizant of time what we have done. And again I know this presentation will be available we've also looked at by Metro. **[32:18] Speaker D:** So you know again I think we've got Texas and California in the deck here. **[32:23] Speaker D:** But we basically tried to look at okay, how does this change by msa and again that's you Know, I would not take this as these particular employers on the right are going to be short by this many people, but we've truly tried to do is illustrate, you know, based on what we're seeing at the MSA level, who are the types of employers or who are the region or who are the employers in the region and the types of employers they may be. So we see a lot of idms here. I think if we look in Austin again, we start to see some capital equipment players, you start to see some fabless players come in as well. But yeah, so we see, we see DFW is a lot more of the gap in Texas than, than Austin, for example. So let's keep moving. **[33:11] Speaker D:** We've got the same view for California, looking at the Bay Area versus LA versus San Diego. You can keep moving. **[33:22] Speaker D:** And then, you know, again, I think the, the point I mentioned earlier, right, like what percent of conversion from the adjacent labor pools would be required. And so you're in the low single digits to kind of twenties, depending on the role type and how much adjacent labor is available in any given state. And you know, I would say engineers, you know, I think rates above a 10 to 15% are likely infeasible without a significant step change. Right. If we just think about that, because I think you're at that point talking about pulling all relevant other engineers from other industries into that role without a significant either, you know, wages offering accelerated retraining, offering an accelerated career path or some other tangible pull. I think that's going to be difficult for technicians. You're seeing the conversion consistently below 10%, I think, except for Idaho, and that is more plausibly achievable. **[34:25] Speaker D:** And again, I think you've got large adjacent labor pools and a shorter retraining pathway for those folks. And we didn't show computer scientists on here, but that's relatively much faster adjacency swap and the conversion needs are very small compared to, and that's just a function of the total demand. So I think again, depending on the type of labor you're seeing, your ability to pull from other adjacent industries might change. **[34:51] Speaker D:** So if we keep hopping here, again, I won't cover this page too much. Basically, we looked at various scenarios to understand which ones would actually change the gap. The one that really saw the most, I would say, detrimental impact on the gap is the design complexity escalation. So if, as we see AI continue to evolve, we start to see a lot of the design complexity, the manufacturing complexity increase and that starts to change the number of folks needed to do jobs that are done today, then you might end up in scenario three. I think I would say of, of while I'm not evaluating the net likelihood of any scenario, I would say that I think the ones I hear far more folks talking about are an AI bubble pop scenario or an industry productivity uplift. **[35:42] Speaker D:** And I would say beyond that, most of the scenarios were kind of within plus or minus 5 to 10% across roles in terms of the overall gap. So why don't we keep moving. **[35:56] Speaker D:** We can, we can skip this one. It's just a deep dive on the scenarios. Then I'll say that the other thing we did was we looked at catalog occurrence solutions again to kind of Irwin's point, just understanding what are we seeing today. I think if we look at there currently a lot of initiatives are not, are not structured to scale nationally. And so we're seeing technician training deliver fast local impact and they see a 70 and 90% placement. **[36:21] Speaker D:** I think engineering programs generate long term value but scale slowly. And again that conversion rate of sub 5% is one of the main impediments there. And then I think we see a lot of initiatives currently depending on a single employer short term funding which makes the outcomes vulnerable if fab timing shifts or if there's a hiring cycle change. And I would say we haven't seen a ton of programs that are designed for replication across regions. And look, I want to be cognizant of time. I know we're coming up on four and I know Jennifer is going to talk about kind of how we take this to be solutions. I know we'll make the deck available so you know, we can walk through, you know, someone wants to get offline, we can talk through what the current catalog looks like and then how that bridges. But I do want to make sure we have time for Jennifer to kind of to walk through how we make this real come to life. **[37:20] Speaker A:** Thank you so much, Taylor. I do want to just say Jennifer, before you jump in. I'm tracking all the questions. We're not going to get to them all. I don't think there are a lot coming in but we will address them. We are, we'll do a written response to the ones we can answer. We'll work with Taylor and Irwin of NSF to make sure we get you all the answers to the questions that you're posing. Sorry. Up to you Jennifer. **[37:40] Speaker C:** Thank you. Thank you, Sherry. We're trying to answer real time as best we can. So keep the questions going as you have them and we'll address them. But the findings that we've shared today and that if you want to take a deeper dive when you have access to the McKinsey report, really reinforce something that we have known for some time. The workforce challenges facing our industry is very real, but it's also one that we can tackle with collective effort and strategy. **[38:09] Speaker C:** We know where the greatest needs exist and the opportunity is to work together in a more coordinated way to bring the workforce in. Industry needs to address those needs. And what these recommendations tell us, looking at the McKinsey report, is that there's clear priorities for the National Network for Microelectronics Education or the NNME to expand employer connected technician pathways that can scale with manufacturing growth. To strengthen engineering pathways through earlier awareness, targeted recruitment and stronger connection between education and industry. Better align regional workforce efforts so successful models can be shared and adapted across the country and use workforce data and continuous evaluation to improve outcomes over time. **[39:06] Speaker C:** And specifically, how is NNME responding? That's exactly what, you know, we're doing in this area. We are, we're looking the Semi foundation is functioning as a coordinating hub for the NNME and we currently have four regional nodes, the NNME Northeast, NME South, NME Southwest and the NNME Pacific Intermountain. And so it covers over 31 states and our focus is five areas of action where we are aligning and we are bringing together industry, education, workforce organizations, government all around a shared national workforce strategy while supporting solutions tailored to regional needs. We're modernizing, we're working with employers and educators to ensure education and training programs reflect current and emerging semiconductor workforce workforce needs. **[40:05] Speaker C:** We're expanding, we're strengthening career pathway pathways by increasing employer engagement and growing work based learning opportunities that connect learners to high demand careers and scaling connecting regional nodes through communities of practice and shared resources so successful workforce models can be replicated and adapted across the country. Measuring the building's shared data, evaluation and performance frameworks that help us understand what works, identify opportunities for improvement and continuously strengthen the national workforce ecosystem. **[40:49] Speaker C:** And so as we close this portion of it and we wanted to allow some time for Q and A, we're really trying to build and strengthen the semiconductor workforce as a long term investment. And so that's what we're focusing on. The encouraging news is that we already have extraordinary partners across the country committed to this work. So you know, just in our four regional nodes, but across the country we have many key players who are helping in this effort by working together, sharing that what works and staying aligned across around industry needs we can build a stronger and more resilient workforce pipeline that supports America's continued leadership and semiconductor innovation. Thank you to all who have joined us today and thank you for your patience in the beginning. **[41:43] Speaker C:** We are especially thankful for our partners at McKinsey for helping us better understand the opportunities and challenges ahead. We hope today's discussion has been valuable and provides useful insight as we continue building the nation's semiconductor workforce together. Following today's webinar, we'll send all attendees a copy of the National Landscape Analysis so you can explore the findings in more detail and share them with your organizations. We encourage you to stay engaged with the work of the NNME and think about how your organization fits into the ecosystem and tackling the challenges. We'll share the recording of this session on our website and as mentioned, we'll also share the report with you at this time. We would love to hear from you if we have time for about eight minutes of some Q and A and we look forward to the discussion. **[42:44] Speaker C:** And so I can read some of the questions and Sherry and Erwin and Taylor if you want to unmute as we go. And I think we've addressed some of these, but there's a question about is there is there any specific bachelor's degree which would be a good which would be good to enter the industry like electrical engineering, mechanical engineering? **[43:07] Speaker D:** Yeah, Jennifer, I mean I think those are both really good ones. I mean I think if I had to pick three that comes to mind it's probably mechanical, electrical and chemical. But I would say there's a lot of different degree types that can be applicable to the industry. But I'd say those, those three are probably the the three big ones that come to mind as immediately scalable. **[43:30] Speaker A:** I would add material science, math, quantum physics. There's like so many different you could jump into and it really depends and I actually was I didn't realize it was just to the person that asked that question, but I put in a link to Chip Path which I'll put in the general chat as well, which gives opportunities for folks to explore the industry, all the jobs and opportunities that are out there. So let me put that in the **[43:51] Speaker C:** chat as well here see another question. How can we be linked to NNME opportunities? We are university and interested to create appropriate programs and semiconductor manufacturing. **[44:03] Speaker C:** And Jennifer will be the right person to get you connected. Yes. So I'll put my email address there as well and so we can depending on where you are there, there may be a regional note within your state that you can get connected to. If not, you can work directly with the hub. **[44:21] Speaker C:** Another question for engineering talent, specifically the low recruitment of 3% into semi related jobs is telling how much of that is due to poorly aligned training skills in the education phase versus poorly competitive salaries or other job aspects to recruit those graduates to this industry. **[44:40] Speaker D:** So I would say I'm not sure it's either of those. If I'm really honest. I think a huge part of this is an awareness situation. I kind of tried to hit on that at the beginning of what I was saying is that for a lot of parts of the country this has just not been an industry that has had a ton of job openings. **[44:57] Speaker D:** If we look over the past several decades, the vast majority of the manufacturing growth has been in Asia. Outside of Silicon Valley there weren't a lot of folks going into the semiconductor industry. I think that's all changed in the time of AI. Like you're starting to see more and more folks. I mean everyone hears everything about AI and the semiconductor industry is really the industry that powers and underpins AI. **[45:20] Speaker D:** And I think now that these jobs are becoming a reality and significantly more accessible to folks outside of ones that either are in California or wanting to move to California. I think you just need a bit of a socialization of the availability of the industry. There's. And then, you know. Yes, I'm sure there are probably additional aspects of ways to entice folks to join the industry, but. Sherry, anything else that comes to mind for you on that one? **[45:47] Speaker A:** No, I think you covered it pretty well. I want to allow for more questions, but I might write out a fuller answer. There is a question for Irwin here as well. Does NSF currently offer programs that would help universities to create new semiconductor development and semiconductor manufacturing manufacturing related courses and programs? **[46:11] Speaker B:** Yeah, so I think that we, we do offer various programs through our STEM education directorate and also through some of the, the directorates within the agency that really have equities in the semiconductor arena. So computer and information science and engineering, engineering math and physical sciences and so forth that have sort of an education and workforce development bent to them. The ability to be able to think about coursework, instructional materials and so forth. Just to give you an example, in the space of computer science, we at the K12 level have supported the development of rigorous and engaging instructional materials for a number of years now to really bring computing to the high school level. So we do do that and happy to have you reach out to me directly. **[47:02] Speaker B:** We can put my email address in the chat as well and I can put you in touch with the right program officers across the agency for having said that. I also want to be sure that anything that we do that's new in this space to some of the conversation on this particular webinar so far. I think we would just want to be sure that there's strong rationale for that and how that compares contrasts with existing instructional materials that could potentially be scaled where the barrier is really more on the scaling side. I'm not saying that's the only thing or the end all be all, but I think that we would just want to be sure we understand the thinking there's. I hope that helps. **[47:41] Speaker A:** Thank you. **[47:42] Speaker C:** Another question. Any evidence that a semiconductor certificate on top of an engineering degree makes a difference in driving engineering engineers to this industry? **[47:54] Speaker D:** So I would say there's probably not enough data to really dive super deep on that. At least that we saw for it to be statistically significant. What I would say though is given that that we're working with a funnel where we say okay, roughly 50% of folks don't stay in STEM STEM careers and then of those, you know, roughly 3% go into the semiconductor industry. I would say if someone has gone out of their way to get a semiconductor certificate, that is a bit of a self declaration of interest in in the field. So I would say I would expect anecdotally that that does increase the the conversion rate, but I don't have facts and figures that definitively prove that. **[48:40] Speaker C:** Another San Jose State University has an Ms. Engineering program specializing in semiconductor process engineering. Do you think it it is a good way. Is a good way help to help develop higher level workforce to meet semiconductor industry needs? Do you think this is a good way. I'm sorry to help develop higher level workforce to meet semiconductor industry needs. **[49:08] Speaker C:** Having an Ms. Engineering program specializing in semiconductor process engineering. **[49:15] Speaker D:** So I mean I would say get on that one. I hesitate to call it any particular educational institution, but I think the more programs we can have specifically tailored to the industry, the better. Right. Especially if we're able to get the students students to fill the seats. I think that would solve both the employer situation kind of mentioned in the survey that they feel that folks aren't as trained on as many things as they would like for them to be, as productive as possible from day one. And then also going to solve from the other question around, you know, again, a self declaration of interest in the industry. You know, someone's much, I would say probably again much more likely to go into the industry. They've already chosen that additional space Specialization. **[49:57] Speaker C:** Thank you. And we, we see the questions coming. **[50:02] Speaker C:** We may have 30 seconds, but why might a recent engineering graduate choose a career in semiconductor manufacturing with roles often involved demanding hours, shift work or on call responsibilities and entry level compensation around $100,000 over software engineering positions that don't have those limitations and have more flexible schedules? **[50:27] Speaker D:** You know, Sherry, chime in after and Jennifer, you as well chime in on this one. You know, I would say a couple things. One is, you know, I think we just look at the total number of those jobs. I would say there's probably not an infinite supply of, of those software engineering roles. So I think that that may be one. Right. It's just, you know, two may be the roles may be in a location that they don't want to live in. I think if we mentioned cost of living, closeness to family and loved ones were two main things that came up as reasons folks want to ultimately pick where they go. I think a third may be that's not that unlike a lot of engineering roles. If I think let's just take a chemical engineer for example. **[51:15] Speaker D:** If they go to work in petrochemical, they go to work in oil and gas. A lot of these are going to be very demanding 247 operations where they may not quite make as much but have similar responsibility levels. **[51:30] Speaker A:** Thank you. Taylor, we have to close. We are a minute over and I'm again apologizing that we were a few minutes late. Thank you so much for joining us. There are a ton of questions that Taylor, Jennifer, Irwin and I will try to address and get responses out to you. **[51:45] Speaker A:** I really appreciate the time, the energy around this topic. It sounds like we might need to share more information and we'll be happy to do that. You'll receive a recording, we'll post where this is. We'll send you where this is posted so you can review it. You'll get the study as well. **[52:01] Speaker A:** So thank you again so much. Thank you to Taylor, to Jennifer and to Erwin for joining us today and thank you for the time and we look forward to continuing to work with you all and we will get back to you on your questions. I'm sorry we didn't get get to everything. Thank you everybody.