This is the latest in a series of briefs unpacking key findings from field research probing the impact of multibillion-dollar public and private semiconductor investments on four regional workforce development systems. The briefs also offer a broad set of recommendations about how these innovations and collaborations might be replicable in workforce systems across the U.S.

Overview

The promise and then disbursement of federal subsidies alongside massive private capital investments set off a cascade of effects in the four regions hosting companies with multibillion dollar investments in semiconductor manufacturing plants. Prospects for new jobs, stemming from chip companies’ expansion announcements and construction timelines, are catalyzing new ways of doing business and transforming relationships across the breadth of organizations engaged in training workers in advanced manufacturing skills, according to workforce training leaders in the four regions. 

This brief examines early workforce development and regional ecosystems-level innovations that are being driven by these intensive public and private semiconductor investments. Workforce intermediaries and educational organizations are piloting training programs and new emerging ecosystem relationships. The four regions are also launching unusual, targeted marketing campaigns to reach and educate new populations about semiconductor and other advanced manufacturing job opportunities. And state and local government partners are stepping up in this workforce landscape in support of these outreach campaigns, new programs, and changing ecosystem relationships.

Regional transformations are occurring at the ecosystem level 

Chips sector investments have led to a surge of local and regional coordination and collaboration, innovative training and education programs, and capacity-building. Driven by demand, local leaders are leading shifts at the programmatic, organizational and systems levels—reflected in both the supply (worker) and demand (company) sides of the training equation. Local supply side (workforce training system) efforts are ramping up to support and train a new workforce, drawing on economically, racially, and ethnically diverse populations, in response to businesses’ more explicit demands about jobs they need to fill. 

Initial signs of these changes fall into two categories. First, regional economic development organizations are taking on new “backbone” functions that are facilitating and leading to these changes. Second, through greater collaborations, employers and workforce trainers are developing and realizing cross-training synergies and efficiencies in the programs training for technician jobs at semiconductor companies and across other advanced industries.

Economic development organizations are taking on backbone functions that are leading workforce transformations

Federal funding, private capital, and other state and federal level interventions focused  the national spotlight on regions racing to scale up semiconductor production—while a tight labor market and unprepared workforce added pressure. Economic development organizations (EDOs) soon stepped up to act as de facto backbone organizations or systems hubs—bringing together companies and other economic development players that historically have been in competition with each other. 

Regional EDOs, such as CenterState CEO in Syracuse and Opportunity Austin, are more proactively forging new industry partnerships and convening roundtables as a regular mode of exchanging information and conducting business. These workforce “backbone” functions—including acting as a convenor and coordinating hub, developing shared training curricula, building collaborative guiding strategy, and establishing shared measurements of success—all provide greater training efficiencies and flexibility for workers seeking alternative manufacturing jobs. 

For instance, Opportunity Austin is convening companies in the region and building a five-county, five-year strategy to tie together multiple sectors, including the semiconductor industry, that will help develop a talent pipeline that serves the whole region. CenterState CEO is taking an ecosystem approach and co-convening the Future-Ready Workforce Innovation Consortium. This is a network of more than 40 educational and workforce organizations and agencies, converging around the $100B investment by Micron Technology Inc. 

In its workforce coordinator role, CenterState is also working toward adoption of a set of industry-recognized credentials for the different levels of semiconductor technicians, in an effort to standardize what is taught, tested against what Micron requires for these roles. These third-party credentials could be embedded in a variety of educational organizations in the Central New York workforce system (e.g. Boards of Cooperative Educational Services, the Syracuse Educational Opportunity Center, high schools, nonprofits, other community colleges, and ON RAMP) and will ideally give the educational partners an efficient way to understand the desired skills, said one economic development official in the region. CenterState is consulting with Micron to determine which credentials to adopt and then will use the Future Ready Workforce Innovation Consortium as a forum for educational providers to co-develop curriculum with industry experts. 

Similarly, the Columbus Partnership, the region’s CEO leadership organization providing long-term vision for greater economic prosperity, has been stepping up to take on a backbone workforce function. The nonprofit is leading efforts to solve for intense workforce development pressures due to the Intel Corporation’s fab location and other considerable business expansion and growth in the region. In fact, a 2024 JP Morgan Chase grant is funding central Ohio organizations to form a new regional workforce collaborative, led by the partnership, that will address employment disparities, enhance workforce development, and create equity for the region’s economic growth. Partnership officials observed that, even with the Intel slow-down, they are applying lessons learned from the Intel experience about greater collaboration, systems connectivity, and the need for coordinating functions to other companies’ expansions that are having even more profound impacts on the regional job training pipeline. 

The Arizona Commerce Authority, the state’s leading economic development organization, performs a connector role between Arizona industry and workforce trainers. For instance, it spearheads Future48 Workforce Accelerators, a workforce development initiative that partners community colleges with industry to create training facilities for high-demand jobs, particularly in advanced manufacturing. It is supported by a $30M investment to build advanced manufacturing facilities across the state to train a skilled workforce for sectors like semiconductors, battery manufacturing, and aerospace and defense. 

Collaborations among employers and workforce trainers are leading to cross-training synergies for technician jobs at chips companies and other advanced industries

A more holistic approach to workforce training ecosystems is a byproduct of shoring up the semiconductor training pipeline with more industry-wide collaboration and a greater mix of stakeholders at the table. To varying degrees, regions are recognizing productive synergies between the semiconductor industry and larger advanced manufacturing sectors in designing and implementing new workforce training opportunities. These cross-collaboration synergies are meeting the needs of the big chipmakers investing in the four regions: Intel, Samsung, Micron, and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp., as well as other companies’ factories that supply these companies, or in related advanced industries. 

Companies and the economic development organizations have identified up to an 80% overlap in competencies between many advanced manufacturing jobs and the semiconductor technician occupations, such as the mechatronics skills gained in advanced manufacturing jobs that are transferable to semiconductor technician jobs. Mechatronics is defined by Michigan Technological University as a “multidisciplinary field that refers to the skill sets needed in the contemporary, advanced automated manufacturing industry. At the intersection of mechanics, electronics, and computing, mechatronics specialists create simpler, smarter systems [and are] an essential foundation for the expected growth in automation and manufacturing.” 

The overlap in competencies and streamlining of training programs can lead to cost savings, training efficiencies, and increased collaboration among employers. Regions are building on these adjacencies in different ways. In places with extensive semiconductor sectors that pre-date the recent surge in chips investments, such as Austin and Phoenix, training is occurring simultaneously for both the original equipment manufacturer semiconductor companies and their suppliers—in addition to cross-training for non-chips advanced manufacturing sectors. 

In Texas, additionally, a growing subsector of related industries—electric vehicles and other advanced manufacturing—means workers can ideally shift around, going to jobs where opportunities arise. One community college official described the semiconductor moment as the “shiny tip of the spear,”  pointing out we have an “advanced manufacturing moment” with opportunity to reinvest and prepare the workforce for careers beyond the individual jobs.  

Other regions are finding advantageous training synergies where community colleges and other training organizations are undertaking joint training program development by sharing faculty and finding workers who are job-ready in a timely manner. In Ohio, for instance, the state’s extensive advanced manufacturing sector, rooted in its deep industrial history, is the basis for adopting a statewide approach to synergistic training. This dynamic is reflected in the Ohio Manufacturing Association’s efforts through its Industrial Sector Partnerships and the Ohio Association of Community Colleges’ recruitment from programs at community colleges across the state to feed trainees into the Intel training pipeline. 

The Ohio Association of Community Colleges and Columbus State Community College are also forging synergistic cross-trainings among advanced manufacturing companies already operating in the central Ohio region, particularly those that are simultaneously expanding operations, such as with the second local Honda electric vehicle plant being built and Intel’s semiconductor fab. The two collaborating institutions see opportunities to help workers develop adjacent skills that expand workers’ employment opportunities and future upskilling to advance their careers. 

Experiences in central Ohio with these new collaborations and cross-trainings involving workforce and economic development partners have also turned out to be a productive “dry run.” As the Intel fab launch date has been pushed out, a senior regional economic development official observed that stakeholders have been able to build on these new programs and partnerships and apply learnings from workforce training and ecosystem innovations to serve other major new market entrants (such as Anduril Industries, that is projected to create up to 4K new jobs). These systems innovations are enabling local leaders to pivot with more agility and meet business demands for skilled workers. 

One state-level workforce official in Texas with national experience—looking beyond individual community colleges and workforce training entities and the semiconductor sector—captured the systemic impacts of the semiconductor investments: 

“One thing…all of this national investment has done is spur educational innovation and partnership…across the country…push[ing] 4-year institutions, like UT Austin, to work more closely with 2-years. …I am now able to do things I could never do in terms of education policy and practice… I’m building a joint training center between Austin Community College and UT, and we’re working together on transfer and co-enrollment pathways, K-12 education, marketing and outreach, veteran populations, stackable workforce credentials between institutions.

In essence, we’re building educational pathways with multiple entry and exits…And not only that, we’re now working beyond semiconductor—people…are seeing this partnership between ACC and UT as a one-stop-shop approach for industry workforce development.” 

Workforce intermediaries and educational organizations are innovating and piloting training programs

Concurrent with the regional ecosystems-level collaborations between advanced manufacturing companies and economic development and business organizations, workforce intermediaries and educational organizations are working with companies to test out new work-based learning programs while also expanding existing programs. For instance, community colleges are designing expedited credentialing programs tailored for new technician jobs; and high schools are creating or expanding dual degree programs and advancing technical education programs.

Pre-apprenticeship, apprenticeship, and earn-and-learn programs are being expanded or piloted across the four regions

As intermediaries take on more backbone functions, new apprenticeship, pre-apprenticeship, and other earn-and-learn programs are being implemented in conjunction with corporations. These programs cater to different ages, demographics, and experience levels. 

Some programs pre-date the chips investments. But they are leveraging the synergies between the semiconductor industry and the advanced manufacturing sector and signal a larger strategy to cast a wide net to find and funnel workers to the new semiconductor jobs. For instance, a registered apprenticeship pilot program in upstate New York, administered by the Manufacturing Association of Center New York, has been training workers for existing chips jobs in the region since 2016. Since the Micron announcement in 2022, the apprenticeship program has seen increased use by regional companies that want to invest in and retain their employees before the Micron fab comes online. But the training program also is designed to supply workers for Micron’s overall operations. Moreover, the apprenticeship credential is used as an upskilling and incumbent-worker recruitment tool as well. 

To expand the talent pipeline, the Manufacturing Association of Center New York has launched a pre-apprenticeship program specifically designed to train women over the age of 18. Real Life Rosies is New York state’s first workforce training program to create a direct pipeline to apprenticeships in advanced manufacturing, encouraging women to pursue careers in the industry. Designed and delivered in conjunction with Mohawk Valley Community College, college officials have described the goals of the 12-week pre-apprenticeship program as helping women gain the skills required to fill apprenticeship positions in entry-level, high-demand manufacturing jobs. Now, the manufacturing association and community college are anticipating the need to ramp up Real Life Rosies to accommodate the demand for workers by Micron and semiconductor sector supply-chain manufacturers.

Other states and regions are recognizing the value of earn-and-learn programs. In conjunction with Intel, and in collaboration with the Arizona Commerce Authority (ACA), a national intermediary (the SEMI Foundation), and other partners, the state of Arizona recently launched its first registered apprenticeship program specifically for manufacturing facility technicians in the semiconductor industry. The program will provide funds to cover tuition, books, supplies, and wraparound supports, such as childcare and transportation. According to senior state policy advisors, these programs are notable for their responsiveness to workforce needs of the semiconductor industry while also providing support services to workers. The state, through the Arizona Commerce Authority, also set up an “employer collaborative” to promote the use and further development of the apprenticeship programs for the semiconductor industry. 

Community colleges are designing and piloting credentialing programs to expedite training and tailor it for new advanced manufacturing technician jobs

Community colleges in these regions, responding to the intense need to fill the technician jobs in a compressed timeframe, are experimenting with a range of micro-credentialing programs and short, non-credit trainings that are easier to get up and running quickly. For instance, Austin Community College has launched the Semiconductor Technician Advanced Rapid Start, or STARS program—a four-week technical training program designed to upskill existing, high-potential employees identified by their supervisors.  Launched in conjunction with five companies, the program pays workers to participate.  

Similarly, in upstate New York, Mohawk Valley Community College is expanding its existing free Fast Track program, established prior to Micron’s investment announcement, to create a technician track that (spurred by Micron and other smaller semiconductor companies) incorporates training in mechatronics and general modern industrial practices. And in Arizona, Intel’s Quick Start program—deployed in league with Maricopa Community Colleges and developed with company input—is an accelerated program geared toward workers who are 25-to-45 years old. It seeks to provide a swift entry point into the semiconductor industry for individuals seeking a career change or those wanting to quickly acquire the necessary skills. Participating students can earn an industry-recognized certification, college credit toward an associate’s degree, and a tuition stipend, as well as an opportunity to interview with Intel.

Still, community college officials have noted, these short-term credentialing programs, also called non-associate degrees, are experimental for workers and companies assessing whether they offer adequate training for the technician jobs. These just-in-time training programs and outreach efforts are driven by business necessity and guided by the CHIPS Act’s statutory language stipulating that fund applicants and their training partners demonstrate a commitment to expand opportunity for economically disadvantaged people and/or those populations that traditionally are not well represented (e.g. women, people of color) in the semiconductor sector.

While community college capacity constraints are common, their strengths vary by institution and region, calling for some regionally bespoke solutions. For instance, Maricopa Community Colleges, encompassing 10 colleges and multiple satellite locations, have the capacity to deploy their facilities and absorb the training needs using a hub-and-spoke model throughout the region, which college and city officials have identified as a competitive advantage. In contrast, the community college systems operating in central Ohio and upstate New York are not structured to build out similarly, so they rely on multiple, individual colleges.

In New York several community colleges scattered throughout the upstate region provide training for Micron and other semiconductor companies. The Onondaga Community College’s mechatronics program ( referenced in a previous brief), which is a dual enrollment program serving teens and adults up to those in their early 50s, was not built solely for Micron and will train students for jobs at other companies and for pathways in adjacent careers, like mechanical technology, and electrical technology, which span many industry sectors. So while there is a heavy focus on semiconductors, an OCC official offered, the college is positioned to offer many pathways in related fields. 

Ohio instead is deploying a statewide strategy to leverage the community colleges across the entire state—including Columbus State Community College and Lorain Community College in northeast Ohio—to funnel workers to Intel’s new fab in central Ohio. One state-level official estimated that an increased “throughput” of individuals by 800% into the workforce from current levels would ultimately be needed to meet Intel employment goals (when the original Intel fab timeline was still on track), which Intel officials found to be a “sobering” assessment. For the near future, the Ohio Association of Community Colleges and its partners were settling for a 200% increase in the worker pipeline, as a stretch goal that is simultaneously achievable.  

While these pilots are good starts, the capacities of community colleges vary substantially from region-to-region. In most places, community colleges require corporate and other investments to fully advance and scale such programs. Better synchronization and communication with employers at this critical juncture would boost community college capability to:

  • Offer a ready supply of trained faculty that rotates from companies to expand capacity in teaching technician courses.
  • Scale micro-credentialing pilots that reduce the timeline for training and job placement.
  • Provide tuition relief to ease adult opportunity costs of leaving current jobs.
  • Increase supportive, wrap-around services to attract underserved populations.
  • Enhance basic STEM curriculum and math preparation.
  • Build competency-based workforce development models that establish, test, and translate competencies into new curricula—a model is electric vehicles workforce training that evaluates skills at the operator and technician levels.
  • Replicate and scale promising pre-apprenticeship and apprenticeship programs.
  • Share curriculum toolkits and playbooks across industries.
  • Extract, share, and replicate sector-specific, expedited training programs such as the STARS program in Austin, the Fast Track program in upstate New York, and the Quick Start program in Arizona.

Employer collaboration and support in helping community colleges scale up and innovate is mutually beneficial, as all these facilitate the supply of much-needed workers.

High schools are creating or expanding dual-degree programs and advancing technical education programs

Community colleges and other regional players recognize that connections with their regional K-12 education systems are critical to providing a robust pipeline to the chips fabs and other advanced manufacturing companies. In Upstate New York, for instance, Mohawk Valley Community College is working with the New York state’s Boards of Cooperative Educational Services, or BOCES. The public organization is unique to New York and provides shared educational programs and services including management and technology support, career and technical education, and special education programs in certain school districts to blur the lines between high school and college. Mohawk Valley Community College, aiming to provide an extensive support structure, is working with BOCES districts to customize trainings for semiconductor sector jobs, such as scaling the P-TECH school curriculum, another earn-and-learn model already being implemented in BOCES. 

Another model is being pioneered by Maricopa Community Colleges in conjunction with the Western Maricopa Education Center, a longstanding career-and-technical education facility that is part of the Phoenix region’s public school district. The two educational institutions are implementing short-term technician training programs, including the Quick Start program, for a wide age range. Started in the 1990s, the West Maricopa Education Center is a unique regional CTE institution that offers short-term training programs for a range of different advanced manufacturing sectors, including the semiconductor industry—further aligning training synergies between the advanced manufacturing and semiconductor sectors. 

West-MEC is unique to Phoenix, serving the regionwide school district and enabled through state legislation. However, it represents a possible model for integrating high school and higher education institutions to channel students to existing jobs, using economies of scale and cost-sharing among school districts.

Regions are launching targeted marketing campaigns to reach and educate new populations of workers 

Officials across these four regions confirmed that reaching and training new populations of workers for chips and advanced industries jobs is essential to augment the talent pipeline and meet the chips and advanced industries demand for jobs. Regional leaders’ outreach efforts involve launching and scaling extensive, customized marketing campaigns across all age groups. These campaigns are designed to provide up-to-date information and dispel myths or misperceptions about the industries. 

These campaigns are particularly aimed at informing middle school and high school students and their parents about the sector’s job opportunities. They also are designed for women of all ages, to build awareness about semiconductor technician jobs and adjacent career pathways while emphasizing the advantages of reskilling and upskilling. The aim is to set up individuals and families for a greater quality of life and family-sustaining wages. While just getting underway, these marketing campaigns are making inroads with students by changing mindsets and generating a new narrative about advanced manufacturing jobs. 

For instance, the Austin business community is rebranding manufacturing through a new media strategy, trying to reach online influencers and guidance counselors through TV and digital marketing. Ohio is retooling to launch a wide-ranging outreach and marketing effort as part of a larger strategy to educate more diverse populations about the semiconductor and advanced manufacturing sectors.

In many places, these campaigns are led by economic development organizations or even by state agencies, because of the importance of reaching new populations across multiple business sectors. This is critical because the advanced manufacturing corporations looking for new talent to hire are generally disconnected from their surrounding communities. One state-level partner noted that industry lacks connections with the community grassroots nonprofits that typically are positioned to reach marginalized populations, making outreach to diverse populations and women a major ongoing challenge. 

Yet in some of the regions manufacturing organizations are stepping up. In Ohio, for example, with its legacy of plentiful manufacturing jobs but where businesses globalized or just walked away from grassroots organizations over the years, workforce development intermediaries such as the Ohio Manufacturing Association and regional workforce boards play an important role in attempting to reconnect industry to local intermediaries.  

State and local governments have stepped up in this new workforce landscape

State and local governments are emerging as unexpectedly strong partners in boosting training efforts and the workforce development pipeline.  Governments are critical to enhancing advanced manufacturing workforce training. And they are heeding the call to partner with federal and private sector investments.

Initially these regional policy players lined up as co-investors alongside the federal government to help their regions compete. They also focused on luring companies to sustain and/or expand their presence in these regions. (The policy organizations include: JobsOhio, Arizona Office of Economic Opportunity, and New York’s Empire State Development and its Office of Strategic Workforce Development.) Now, they are deeply involved in helping the regions get ahead of workforce shortages by investing in and incentivizing new training programs at levels and types of engagement that vary from state to state.

For instance, New York state has experience with apprenticeships and earn-and-learn programs and is piloting practices in training incumbent adult workers, such as with the Real Life Rosies program. Arizona, however, is just launching its first apprenticeship programs. Nonetheless, state and local governments from the start have been heavily involved in attracting and/or retaining the semiconductor companies in their regions, extending and leveraging federal funds. They have played outsized roles, along with regional nonprofit partners, in expanding worker recruitment, outreach, and training.

The states are invested in preparing chips industry workers—recognizing that a limited supply of trained workers to fill technician jobs could undercut the ability for the new fabs to come online in a timely manner and operate at requisite levels, thus undermining their own production goals and national efforts to grow the domestic semiconductor industry. And while unusually active local and state government agencies have jumped in to pour concentrated funding and new strategies into transforming regional workforce training, these public sector efforts require nonprofit and private sector partnerships for sustainability. 

Conclusion

Semiconductor sector investments in the fabs and workforce training are precipitating changes in these four regional workforce development ecosystems, as new innovations and collaborations are tested and rolled out in real time. Across all four regions, this field research uncovered an array of once-siloed workforce development players now coming together to overcome multiple challenges plaguing their programs, albeit in ways unique to each of the regions’ histories and with bespoke regional responses. This research documented workforce and economic development leaders rising to meet the moment through innovative, nimble training programs; and industry leaders convening roundtables and building new connections through training collaborations and workforce partnerships across educational systems, multiplying options for worker entry into chips technician jobs and career pathways.

Whether these advances in workforce development practices gain traction remains to be seen, but the results of the field research presented in this issue brief are promising. If sustained and replicated, these promising innovations could, in turn, promote more types of effective advanced manufacturing training upon which the future of U.S. economic competitiveness rests.

The final issue brief in this series will present five key ways these early innovative practices underway in Austin, Phoenix, central Ohio, and upstate New York can become replicable models, not only in these four regions but also across the country.

Lavea Brachman is a nonresident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, an honorary visiting fellow at the University College London’s Bartlett School of Planning, and the author of this series of issue briefs.

The author expresses deep appreciation to the Lumina Foundation for funding and supporting this work and to colleagues: Martha Ross, Mark Muro, Joe Parilla, Rachel Lipson, Harry Holzer, Annelies Groger, and David Johnson for their review and excellent comments. Any errors, inaccuracies, or omissions are solely the responsibility of the author.

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