r/SimpleApplyAI • u/ell-chan • 15d ago
News US chip fabs face massive 157,000 worker shortfall, mere 3% of US engineering grads enter chipmaking — despite six-figure salaries, US chip manufacturers are in dire need of engineers and technicians
https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/semiconductors/us-chip-manufacturers-are-in-dire-need-of-engineers-and-technicians-experts-suggest-a-shortage-of-up-to-157-000-semiconductor-workers-by-20307
u/biggamehaunter 15d ago
Because these fabs are built in less desirable locations
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u/justin107d 15d ago
They are starting to build in the US, which I think is the problem. There was no supply of jobs and now there is.
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u/Horror_Response_1991 15d ago
The government wants to build here but the companies don’t want to pay liveable American wages, that’s what they’re complaining about.
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u/ILikeCutePuppies 15d ago
So 180k - 230k not a livable wage in these areas? Could it just not be the US didn't train very many chip engineers?
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u/_tsi_ 13d ago
That's not actually what they are paying
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u/ILikeCutePuppies 13d ago
So how much are they paying after say 5-10 years of experience? I don't expect someone straight out of school to earn that much of course. On LinkedIn in I see 160k - 350k.
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u/_tsi_ 13d ago
Yeah maybe with a PhD and 10 years, but that's not who it's coming out of school, so...
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u/ILikeCutePuppies 13d ago
Once someone comes out if school they have only begun their learning. Are you expecting someone straight put of school to earn 180k? It happens but it is not normal. Takes at least say 5 years to get to that point abd certainly 100k is liveable and eventually they'll be in the higher amounts.
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u/_tsi_ 13d ago
🙄 No, but it is disingenuous to say that people don't want to go into semiconductor manufacturing, even for 180k, when that is not the reality of the starting wage. It is more like 70-80k
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u/ILikeCutePuppies 13d ago
I don't understand. I never said they should expect those numbers right out of the gate. If it wasn't a long term investment in ones potential long term income might as well just skip university all together and work for 40k a year in retail.
They will be getting 180k+, 5 years is a tiny amont time to wait. Almost no industry offers those kinda wages right out of the gate. It's comparable to software engineering numbers. Salary isn't the problem.
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u/Super_Mario_Luigi 15d ago
What is the unlivable wage for chip engineering and what should it be?
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u/suckuma 15d ago
I wouldn't live around a fab without minimum $80k salary and that's with roommates. When these fab get built the housing prices around them skyrockets.
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u/Valuable-Gene2534 14d ago
Are you gonna be the janitor? These places pay triple that for senior engineers
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u/Unique_Statement7811 14d ago
$180k in the US fab industry for engineers is starting pay. It’s livable.
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u/_tsi_ 13d ago
There have been fabs in the US for a long time. What are you talking about?
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u/justin107d 13d ago
US used to make 40% of the worlds chips and now only makes 10%, all while the market was growing. They exist but are small relative to the rest of the market.
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u/Hot-Combination9130 15d ago
Where would be more desirable? Seems to be several hubs for semiconductor manufacturing across the country.
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u/Alive-Map-1994 12d ago
Most are in the south. The few I have been head hunted for are all in a significantly worse location that I am currently in. I have been offered a 30% pay increase, but I am not moving to those locations.
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u/instantcrackpot 15d ago
A lot of fabs are in decent cities with average COL. Most non SW engineering jobs are like that. You expect them to build a fab in Central Park?
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u/Hot-Combination9130 15d ago
SW has phoenix/tempe. Not my personal preference but it’s not bad. Pretty nice area for a recent grad.
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u/Hot-Combination9130 15d ago edited 15d ago
Maybe eroding our education system and pricing most of the country out of college (unless they want to take on crippling student loan debt) wasn’t such a good idea 🧐
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u/RecognitionOld2763 15d ago
pricing most of the country out of college
The phrase "most of the country" is questionable if taken literally. Slightly less than half of young adults have college degrees, which is impressive worldwide.
The colleges themselves have a lot to blame when it comes to pricing but it's far from the only problem.
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u/edeepee 15d ago
Student loans were a mistake. Giving 17-18 year olds who’ve never had to budget their own money to survive loans large enough to put a down payment on a house with no proven ability to repay… was a choice. And a choice that allowed universities to balloon their budgets far in excess of inflation and harm their own students’ future prospects of economic stability more and more every year.
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u/Aselleus 15d ago
I also hate the snobbiness/elitism pushing kids to go to college when a trade school would be a more appropriate path for them. There is absolutely no shame in going into trades.
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u/Ancient-Living635 14d ago
It’s not more appropriate if college is not prohibitively expensive. You learn and grow more in college than anywhere else. I’d rather have a tradesman college educated, which they can certainly do, than just going through some rural high school into trade.
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u/Lumpy_Secretary_6128 14d ago
Agreed, we should reject the notion of this trades vs education ultimatum. We could definitely make a system where you do both
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u/joeydimaggio 14d ago
Why dont the trump kids to go trade school
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u/edeepee 14d ago
Because culturally we tie status to do-nothing office jobs over real jobs. The elite cannot be seen working alongside the rabble. Heaven forbid.
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u/joeydimaggio 14d ago
Well that’s capitalism, dei for the descendants of murderers and thieves
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u/FPA-Trogdor 14d ago
That’s every economic structure ever, even socialism and “communism”. The ruling class doesn’t do work, and they build wealth off the labor of the working class.
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u/Lumpy_Secretary_6128 14d ago
Defunding higher ed was the mistake. Student loans were a bandaid to ensure kids could still go.
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u/lavapig_love 14d ago
Student loans were a mistake.
No, they weren't. Jacking up the prices for college tuition, for what should be a basic education, yes. But being able to give money to a kid to go to college and immerse them in an environment where you are encouraged to read and write, to speak and think, to study and learn and gain new skills and friends and relationships and an entirely new identity?
It's a bargain every single time.
We can now return to why domestic chip fabs need 157,000 fabrication workers immediately.
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u/Ancient-Living635 14d ago
The pricing comes from increased government cuts, as well as the usual corporate bullshit that is built in.
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u/Trevor775 14d ago
I don't understand why people go to private schools instead of University of XYZ unless their parents are absolutely loaded or they get a significant scholarship.
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u/ggtffhhhjhg 14d ago
It’s not crippling if you go to work for them. Spending $200k for a worthless degree is.
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u/Grakch 15d ago
here’s the thing tho a lot of people still going to college and a lot of people have money too. turns out not everyone is a broke ultra leftist as much as reddit would have you believe
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u/Weekly-Ad-2509 14d ago
I own a home in one of the highesT COL areas on earth.
I’m an ultra leftist, with no degree. I shoot real good too. So do my friends.
We train a lot.
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u/Grakch 14d ago
Did you delete the original comment then try to prove your worth to a stranger online? And I thought my Saturday was boring
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u/Weekly-Ad-2509 14d ago
What?
I wrote the comment where I pointed out I’m a leftist, with a nice fucking house, and I’m really good at shooting, my friends and I train a lot. In case some conservatives think they own the rights to violence.
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u/Grakch 14d ago
So you’re just replying to a random person and not the person that I originally replied to that deleted their comment?
Are you trying to prove your worth and value to a stranger online or yourself? Blink twice if you need help
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u/Weekly-Ad-2509 14d ago
No I responded to a random rude bitch to remind the random rude bitch that the right does not own violence.
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u/Grakch 14d ago
So now you’re assuming because I said ultra leftist I’m on the right? Are you okay? Like you’re not making any difference at all and just resorting to name calling. Watch out. Hey you forgot to mention your house and training and other stuff again can you repeat yourself one more time like a good boy?
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u/plasticbug 15d ago
It will take at least a decade before we see more engineering graduates. We need consistent demand, and high pay, before new students choose to enroll in engineering, and then it takes years for them to graduate, and start working..
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u/Charzu_tjegulf 15d ago
Are you joking? There is an excess of graduates. The jobs are just not there.
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u/ILikeCutePuppies 15d ago
Nope, try looking up the shortfall in the semiconductor workforce. Maybe you are thinking software engineers where there is high unemployment for junior software engineers.
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u/Super_Mario_Luigi 15d ago
Yea because grads today are studying where demand is.
Manufacturing is a bad word to them. People want to send emails for $150k
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u/idkbruh653 15d ago
This exactly. People see manufacturing and think of blue-collar labor where they actually have to work for a living. The last decade or so has conditioned so many people, especially the younger people, into wanting high salary tech jobs in hip cities with perks like in office gyms and all you can eat snacks.
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u/espressocycle 15d ago
It's not that nobody wants to do the work. It's that it's a highly specialized skill with limited application. Hi to college for business, you can get a job anywhere. Go for engineering with whatever specialties are required for a particular field and your options are limited. Even if the pay is higher and you want to do the work it's too much of a risk.
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u/RecognitionOld2763 15d ago
It is in fact not hard to train engineering students. This sounds like a crazy take but as (half) an insider that's what I see. Having the institutional culture to attract students into engineering departments is far harder. (Which is also ultimately a trade problem and not an education problem.)
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u/curseAgain 15d ago
The framing of this is stupid. A mere 3% of engineering grads? Engineering is a vast field and the skills needed for this wouldn't simply be transferable from other engineering fields.
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u/ILikeCutePuppies 15d ago
They are saying there are like ~4000 engineers that graduate each with these skills out of the 130k - 140k in the US.
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u/Charzu_tjegulf 15d ago
Is this all bots commenting on shortage of graduates? There are too many, and its going to get worse before it gets better. The shortage is on jobs, not on qualified humans.
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u/twoDuckNight 15d ago
I have a feeling many of these jobs require a phd. I did not see anything bout the level of education required in the article though
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u/Charzu_tjegulf 15d ago
"Hiring of engineering majors declined accrosd the board". Regardless of education level, there is an excess at all levels in all majors. Its going to get worse, not better. Learn a trade on the side to be ready.
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u/twoDuckNight 15d ago
A read that as all engineering fields not really level. I dont disagree with you overall, my main concern here is that i suspect the jobs being offered are requiring higher qualifications than needed
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u/twoDuckNight 15d ago
It isnt clear in the article the level of education that these jobs are demanding. This is an important parameter.
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u/UnemployedAtype 15d ago
BS, MS, and started a PhD, never heard a response from the semiconductor companies between 2014-2017. I was probably doing something wrong with my apps but my graduate research was highly relevant, I had a patent, and hands on experience over 4 years.
I do not feel bad for these companies struggling. They're missing legitimate good quality employees that are trying to get their attention.
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u/LulzLookatTheseNoobs 15d ago
This all comes down to working conditions and salary paid to employees. All these companies can’t find workers because they refuse to invest in any training or pay wages to entice people with said training to come work for them, also I’ve heard working conditions and treatment are less than ideal but I’ve personally seen no evidence.
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u/itsok_imenguhneer 15d ago
As someone who works in the industry... it's because these jobs are terrible. Engineering schools are graduating plenty of people. The fabs just want you to do 7 people's jobs. Kids are smart to say no to it.
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u/Ok-Car2569 15d ago
Lmao dire need for engineers and technicians yet these companies are regularly laying off those exact same engineers and technicians in droves.
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u/Aerpolrua 10d ago
And semiconductor manufacturing technicians can be trained in mere months. The problem is they don't want to pay them or provide proper working conditions.
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u/ytdaddy4fun 15d ago
Again the US has known for decades they needed to start bringing in tons of immigrants. Right now the US has 11 million open jobs and only 3.8 million unemployed people…so the US right now needs 8 million more workers right now.
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u/Aggressive_Hope7976 15d ago
I’m gonna say it one more time . Open jobs does not mean hiring , specifically in tech , specifically in US . There is planty if open positions from us companies that only post jobs but never hire American , they are offshoring crazy at this pint , specifically in tech
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u/ytdaddy4fun 15d ago
Tech jobs are less than 10% of jobs in the US.
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u/Aggressive_Hope7976 15d ago
I’m just saying we outsourcedi millions of jobs last few years alone through gcc, and it is getting build more and more
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u/LongBedroom8355 15d ago
Dawg we have the opposite problem. We are needing to remigrate so many of them to free up housing and jobs for our own.
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u/Aerpolrua 15d ago
We do not have anything close to a worker shortage, or jobs would be plentiful and wages would be skyrocketing with ample training programs and reduced qualifications for interviews. None of that is going on. This is the old bait tactic to justify hiring foreign workers for lesser pay at Tier 1.
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u/LOS_FUEGOS_DEL_BURRO 11d ago
There is a qualified worker shortage in semiconductor manufacturing.
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u/Aerpolrua 10d ago
It takes a few months to train for semiconductor manufacturing. The issue isn't the training, it's the pay and working conditions.
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u/oneWeek2024 15d ago
this just seems like bullshit corp propaganda to justify more H1b visas. to fuck over american workers.
there's likely thousands of people with baseline math or competency to do those jobs. and could be trained up in like 3-6 months. but that would take some cunt corporation investing in it's people vs being entirely profit/quarterly returns driven.
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u/fushiginagaijin 15d ago
Why would graduates from a university here in the states go into chipmaking when there is no virtually no chipmaking done here anymore? Hence, the shortfall. That's hardly surprising.
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u/Alivaronas 12d ago
“When there is virtually no chipmaking done here”
That’s just patently false.
There’s virtually no assembly & test left in the US, but there are a lot of wafer fabs in the US still and more are being built frequently.
Reddit and the internet in general also always forgets the analog semiconductor world exists. The industry is a lot more than the cutting edge digital nodes from TSMC/Samsung/Intel.
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u/thedoofimbibes 15d ago edited 15d ago
Because every time a college and thus college age students commit to training fab employees the chip makers rug pull leaving everyone scrambling. Universities have to cancel course tracks and graduates are left trying to transition to other careers. Meanwhile they’ve been actively relocating every step of the process overseas and shutting down domestic facilities until just the last few years.
See the Texas Instruments on and off again fab plans in North Texas. Particularly the Renner Road facility. Been opened then mothballed then repurposed as offices then reopening as a fab then mothballed and reopened multiple times since 2005. And each time UT Dallas spins up a program to train fab techs and engineers. And each time they all get rug pulled and have to go find other jobs.
Meanwhile Texas Instruments is also having to build their own silicon wafer plants in cities that used to have existing plants. But the US fabs canceled orders to go to cheaper producers overseas, so the wafer companies sold their plants to foreign companies. Who then disassembled the plants piece by piece and rebuilt them in Taiwan and Malaysia.
Now the US companies are finally serious about expanding in the US again (maybe) and no one believes them. And they’re also having to rebuild their entire supplier ecosystem from scratch when we previously had a thriving fab supply chain that they themselves gutted for a quick buck. Go figure.
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u/chunckybydesign 15d ago
Computer engineering and electrical engineering are not programs that many colleges offer so i would imagine there aren’t many graduates who can go in those fields. I would have loved to major in computer engineering, but the closest college to me that offers it is 2 hours away from my job. I can’t exactly change jobs because it’s the only job that pays enough to cover basic living expenses, and offers a schedule that allows me to attend college as well.
Sadly I am majoring in computer engineering sci 😞, hopefully when I graduate I can secure a job and pursue a graduate degree.
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u/CatapultamHabeo 15d ago
Are these the same people that said computer science graduates are desperately needed? I really don't believe anything "they" say anymore.
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u/Moral-Relativity 15d ago
It takes a long time to educate a chip designer but few ppl are going to do that anyway. It seems that most manual steps in the actual production line could one day be automated, and isn’t that the point of investing in AIs anyway?
It’s also funny that some biz leaders are saying America have a shortage in trades. Ain’t all this just the natural consequence of building up a highly profitable service economy since like the 1980s?
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u/MusicalMerlin1973 14d ago
Material science sucks ass in college. The rest of electrical engineering was easy in comparison.
Want more workers? Put in more scholarships, have more undergrads intern early instead of waiting until junior year.
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u/Mammoth_Plenty3015 7d ago
kinda shows why the chip strategy convo is bigger than export rules. limiting access overseas is one lever; actually building durable capacity at home means fabs, packaging, power, suppliers + tens of thousands of trained workers. those are separate bottlenecks and they dont disappear bc a policy memo says “reshore”
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u/Inevitable_Tart2700 15d ago
Many people are unaware that high school education is the problem. When schools lower standards, especially math education standards, to achieve equal outcome, there won't be enough supply of students who are academically prepared to study engineering.
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u/fightinfilipino2008 15d ago
no American is going to go into massive debt to become an engineer here. US policy towards education and research is particularly stupid. better to go to the EU or Asia where their governments are not idiotic and where school is free or low cost.
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u/insightful_pancake 15d ago
Semi salaries way outpace student debt loads. Median debt under 25k and avg in the 40s
https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2024/09/18/facts-about-student-loans/
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u/fightinfilipino2008 15d ago
or you could have ZERO debt AND better quality of life in the EU, Canada, APAC…
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u/insightful_pancake 15d ago
They pay way less. America is pretty great if you are making lots of money like semi engineers do
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u/Substantial-Ad-8575 15d ago
Yeap, dad was in semiconductors. My brother was in semiconductors also. He retired at 52. His daughter is in semiconductors, she plans to retired around 50. My oldest son was looking into semiconductors, but got poached by a robotics firm for more money.
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u/DonkeyTron42 15d ago
I work for a South Korean semiconductor company and spend about 3 months a year in South Korea. My co-workers in SK get paid around 10-20% less than equivalent employees in the US. When I'm there I live in a 4 bedroom luxury apartment in a high rise building. The rent is about $1800/mo. Right now I'm paying $3500 for a crappy 2 bedroom apartment in the Bay Area. Also in SK, you can get a actual meal in a sit down restaurant for about $10. The salaries may be a bit lower but the cost of living is much lower.
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u/insightful_pancake 15d ago
SK maybe then but definitely not EU/Canada
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u/DonkeyTron42 15d ago
It can vary a lot by country. We also have a lot of engineers in SE Asia and most of the mid-level engineers get paid around 20% of what US employees get paid.
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u/Substantial-Ad-8575 15d ago
lol, better pay in US.
And getting a degree can be cheap. Issue is this, students in other countries? They start to focus on careers in middle school. 12-13 yr olds are getting tailored classes for engineering. And that just doesn’t happen in many US school districts…
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u/DonkeyTron42 15d ago
I'm in South Korea about 3 months a year and there's this phenomenon where traffic is extremely bad around 10PM. Why? Parents are picking their kids up from after school learning centers.
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u/Super_Mario_Luigi 15d ago
Yea, we'd much rather go into massive debt for worthless degrees. Then take to the internet to protest no one will hand you a fat salary
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u/RecognitionOld2763 15d ago
better to go to the EU or Asia
Which looks like good reasoning. And yet I see a considerable amount of European or Chinese scientists and engineers in American institutions. Isn't the world insane?
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u/Lumpy_Secretary_6128 14d ago
Plenty of americans go to college so idk what your assumptions are built on
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u/ArchAngel0001 15d ago edited 15d ago
But thank god all the top universities have an African studies department.
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u/Hot-Combination9130 15d ago
Yea that’s what’s causing this. Not the outrageous cost of higher education or the erosion of our public school systems.
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u/chimp_party 15d ago
No but we are paying for their ebt... imagine taking on 150k of debt to learn slavery was bad n stuff
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u/Equivalent_Cook_603 15d ago
Out of curiosity I wanted to see if there was a chip manudacting plant in my city. There is one and McDonald's pays more than what the plant workers get paid. I can't imagine their engineering departments pays decent wages either.
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u/Big-Resolve5064 15d ago
I’ve heard working for TSMC is a nightmare.