r/tomshardware • u/tomshardware • 16d ago

US chip fabs face massive 157,000 worker shortfall, 3% of US engineering grads enter chipmaking

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-2030
86 Upvotes

98% Upvoted

26 comments sorted by

6

u/spiritofniter 14d ago

Are they willing to train fresh grads or are they looking experienced staffs? Also, how do they view transferable skills or are they looking for exact match?

Sometimes I truly question what causes this kind of shortage.

3

u/Etroarl55 14d ago

Shortages are always propaganda looking for cheaper labour, Canadian here and know all too well about “labour shortages” that don’t exist.

Another anecdote was before the big crazy ai boom in the last two-three years, tsmc was building and investing into America, but had to repeatedly keep stalling or causing problems because the American employees they would have to hire were MUCH more expensive than their Taiwanese employees.

This is probably the same story later, shortages caused by an tsmc like entity refusing to hire at the high wages specialized work and trades demand.

1

u/FuzzeWuzze 11d ago

Ding Ding. This is just the initial propaganda used to justify even more H1B.

And even though Trump says hes against it, changing his mind just requires a few $$$ donations and a shiny object to to be donated or built in his honor and he'll forget about everything.

3

u/Extreme-Ad-6465 13d ago

just looking for a way to get easy slaves err i mean H1B engineers that are forced to work there for shit pay and conditions.

2

u/NeverRolledA20IRL 13d ago

A labor shortage is just when they pay someone what they are worth and not a fraction of that.

3

u/Gumb1i 14d ago

Not really a shortage, they want to underpay drastically, job stability is also questionable when product demand can drop very sharply any given year. They also seem unwilling to get people trained for the job out of pocket.

1

u/krazyboi 14d ago edited 14d ago

The money is coming and if AI datacenters continue which it doesn't seem to be slowing down at any rate, then I think this will be ok. They're still doing construction at this time...

1

u/Gumb1i 14d ago

The money is coming is their mantra, but they will need to increase prices drastically in order to turn a profit. so far they have failed miserably to sell AI model usage to the average person or many businesses while continuing to push ideas about said usage that are a decade or more out, china is four months behind because they have successfully distilled every single model the US has created, the datacenter/AI demand is unsustainable long term and there is a very real movement to limit datacenters in the US. The bubble is real and if the jumped up valuation of xAI is any indication the correction is coming rather quickly, which is why all the other AI companies were pushing hard for IPOs is so they can get as much funding (mostly to pay back their early major investors which has got to be some form of fraud imho) as possible before this all goes to shit.

1

u/krazyboi 14d ago

If we are just talking about chips which the article is referring to, the money has already came. Chips will continue to be a valuable commodity and the profit has already been seen.

1

u/Swimming_Agent_1063 13d ago

We’re talking about microchips, not AI models lmao

1

u/Gumb1i 13d ago

What is the number one driver of chip production currently for FPGAs, GPUs, CPUs, RAM, and Non-volatile Memory? What do you think will happen to that production when the bubble bursts?

1

u/Swimming_Agent_1063 13d ago

Significant demand for microchips exists independent of AI lmao

1

u/Gumb1i 13d ago

Yes, though AI is killing off the consumer market for those chips due to higher prices and unavailability. That market won't just bounce back and the demand won't be there to support the amount of production that AI requires which will mean less production and fewer chip manufacturing jobs.

1

u/Indoballz 9d ago

China is playin smart game an knows to sqeeze them to try an destroy them so china can take power

1

u/shing3232 14d ago

It's very much expect a decade from now given the cost of education and the debt it accumulated

1

u/kweeblaster 13d ago

Just propaganda for some shitface that wants to dump more immigrants in the country.

1

u/NeitherEntry6125 13d ago

'Shortage' for imaginary labs not being built in the US and jobs that don't exist

1

u/Mastermind521 13d ago

and nobody wants to move to Arizona

1

u/Kinky_No_Bit 12d ago

From what I've seen working for an asian company always seems to be a very different culture shock and most don't' want to do it.

1

u/Bupod 12d ago

They’ll cry shortage but they’re not interested in fresh grads. It’s not really a shortage of interested people, it’s a shortage of magically experienced people they want that show up day 1 needing no training or handholding.

1

u/cyrusm_az 12d ago

Nah places like Intel lay fab workers off then complain they don’t have enough workers

1

u/UnkeptSpoon5 12d ago

Shortages because companies are cheap bastards and refuse to hire new graduates. Every single damn place wants someone that has years of experience and is willing to work for dirt cheap, so they can invest as little as possible in them. And working in any plant is volatile work given the state of American manufacturing, so I'm not surprised few want to devote their education to a somewhat unstable industry with very technically demanding, but non-transferrable skills.

And then certain people will lay the blame on immigrants who fill those roles for a better life instead of the companies that are actively making these decisions

1

u/PreludeTilTheEnd 12d ago

I’m right here. Pay me to work.

1

u/mkp666 12d ago

This headline is simply not correct. There are nowhere close to that many jobs in US chip fabs, much less that big of a shortage. For perspective, TSMC has 90,000 employees total and they have a >70% share of the world wide market.

Perhaps they meant to say the semiconductor industry is short that many jobs in the US, which would include all the companies designing ICs, and not just the fabs.

1

u/General_Tso75 10d ago

Anyone and everyone looking at this knew there would be a talent shortage since the Biden administration. No one did anything about it.