This series of briefs unpacks 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. As a backdrop to the experimentation and innovation this research uncovered, this first brief outlines systemic problems workforce leaders in these regions are confronting to fill the advanced manufacturing jobs our nation needs in the 21st century.

Overview

Longstanding systemic challenges and limited institutional capacity in U.S. workforce development systems impose barriers to access for workers across multiple sectors, while also interfering with efforts to introduce systemwide innovations necessary to reach and train a sufficient talent pipeline for advanced manufacturing. These entrenched barriers risk undercutting or derailing the positive momentum that these public and private investments are driving in workforce training innovation to fill hundreds of thousands of projected semiconductor technician jobs. 

If left unaddressed, these problems may well cause the four regions hosting companies receiving the largest investments to miss job placement goals and undermine parallel efforts to create functioning and efficient workforce development programs for advanced manufacturing more broadly. This brief details observations from leaders in the four workforce regions about the current state of their training systems and the specific challenges that need to be overcome to maximize the new semiconductor-sector investments. 

For regional workforce systems to meet the demand for trained chip fabrication jobs, they need to overcome four salient challenges: 

  • Fragmented legacy workforce and economic development systems, where organizations have worked in isolation and with insufficient capacity to innovate or work in a connected regional network.
  • Chronic recruitment and retention challenges at all junctures in the training pipeline, from K-12 education to community college and other workforce training providers.
  • Inadequate capacity at community colleges, the cornerstone for the workforce training system.
  • Historic labor market barriers to entry for populations needed to implement transformative talent pipeline practices.

While the challenges vary from region to region, common problems are evident. Understanding these challenges is the first step in undertaking systemwide reform for advanced manufacturing workforce training.

Internally fragmented workforce development systems are also disconnected from regional economic development programs 

The large, demand-side chip investments raise pressing questions about the actual capabilities of our nation’s workforce development systems, which have been internally fragmented and, as a result, less coherent and coordinated. A critical juncture for future workers is their transition out of high school, where chronic disconnections with postsecondary systems pose severe recruitment challenges for programs that train students for semiconductor technician jobs. The “leaky pipeline” of students and workers has multiple causes, say community college officials and policymakers.

One is a lack of understanding about—or awareness of—the semiconductor sector itself, which often leads to many high school graduates seeking more familiar service-sector jobs. Many of these jobs offer limited career-building opportunities or even reliable living wages. Yet the opportunity costs for people who are understandably reluctant or unable to leave these lower-paying jobs and give up paychecks often outweigh the chance to get further education and skilling, at least without incentives or other strong encouragement for “in-demand” semiconductor jobs that are mostly down the road. As a result, they miss out on embarking on a training pathway for jobs that pay better wages.

Indeed, high school graduates are not well-supported as they transition to employment or postsecondary training. Tracking new recruits through different stages of the pipeline is labor-intensive. Finding and reaching these new recruits, convincing workers to leave their current jobs (or rejoin the labor market) and enter training programs, then retaining trainees in programs is hard enough. Turning trainees into graduates and workers—as well as returning incumbent employees for additional skills training—are the next challenging pivot points to funnel workers into the training pipeline for entry-level chips and other advanced manufacturing jobs.  

Additionally, these disconnects across systems pose particular recruitment and retention challenges for populations that are already underrepresented in the chips sector, such as women, people of color, and the Appalachian and more rural populations that constitute a source of talent in central Ohio and upstate New York. Without systems designed to recruit and retain workers across the diverse spectrum of available talent, regional leaders reflected that economic and workforce development goals are very hard to meet. 

Beyond these glaring disconnects between regional workforce needs and education systems, the institutions that support economic and workforce development programs are often misaligned with the companies’ hiring needs. This misalignment can interfere with a unified approach to training workers and prevent the emergence of more synergistic training programs that prepare workers for jobs in a range of different industries within advanced manufacturing and would also be cost-effective and efficient for workers.  

The new chips funding is beginning to change some of these dynamics by providing an impetus for regional leaders across sectors to collaborate more closely. Corporations are putting pressure on existing workforce systems, necessitating innovation and collaboration among the regional players. Several senior community college administrators observed that the companies often do not recognize the importance of investing in and sustaining this innovation and collaboration. Unfamiliar with the training systems, firms tend to be more focused on near-term training programs, which are aimed at producing workers needed to fill jobs required to get fabrication plants up and running. 

Without sustained workforce training, the lack of a steady pipeline of workers is likely to slow or derail chips production in new and expanded fabs and ultimately interfere with national security goals across advanced manufacturing sectors. Importantly, though, regional workforce and economic development leaders in the four places where these new fabs are located are quickly coming to grips with the intense scaling pressures on their systems to supply the requisite volume of trained technician workers. One state official noted that to meet current projected production goals for the new semiconductor sector, their state’s educational and training pipeline would have to increase the number of trainees by 800% from the current baseline.

Chronic problems plague K-12 systems, followed by insufficient support for postsecondary recruitment and retention

Inherent weaknesses in our nation’s K-12 systems—a primary source of new talent—compromise student readiness and place additional burdens on workforce training systems. With new and expanded semiconductor factories projected to come online in three to five years, the bulk of the new technician jobs will necessarily be filled by students now in the K-12 systems who would need to augment the talent pipeline. Recruitment challenges in the K-12 systems, identified by workforce and economic development leaders in all four regions, stem from basic misperceptions among students and their families about the chips industry and advanced manufacturing broadly and to students who are ill-prepared in basic literacy and numeracy.

Many interviewees noted that the semiconductor sector is widely misunderstood or unknown to many students and their parents. These misperceptions are grounded in old-fashioned views about advanced manufacturing among younger people and their families who still understand it as “dirty work” or strenuous physical labor on a factory floor. These misperceptions are particularly—but not solely—prevalent in regions with a deep industrial past (such as upstate New York and central Ohio). In fact, leading Arizona educational officials noted that significant knowledge gaps exist at all levels about what the semiconductor industry is and what the jobs entail.They said closing these knowledge gaps is a particularly acute challenge at the K-12 level. Feeding the future workforce pipeline will depend on dispelling these misperceptions and fleshing out these knowledge gaps.

Not surprisingly, basic literacy and numeracy gaps exist among high school graduates—particularly for underserved populations. These gaps pose training challenges for the technician jobs requiring remedial courses and a variety of support services. However, they are being addressed through enrichment programs such as EdReady at Maricopa Community Colleges in Phoenix, as well as by embedding supports such as childcare, transportation, and other wraparound services in pre-apprenticeship programs that are now being stood up, in various forms, in all four regions. 

But relatedly, the K-12 systems have an inadequate number of teachers with the right skills or classroom equipment needed to further educate students for these jobs. These are significant hurdles that are now being addressed with some new programs and initiatives, but will require ongoing and sustained efforts at the regional and state levels.

These regions’ workforce development systems are starting to provide minimal childcare, transportation, and other wraparound service supports for those who do enroll in postsecondary programs. Yet national data shows that low completion rates are common for individuals that need these supports or struggle with other extenuating circumstances, which is certainly not limited to workers training for semiconductor sector programs. These conditions exert extreme pressure on recruiting workers in a tight labor market. 

Community colleges possess great potential but are facing capacity constraints on multiple fronts, inhibiting their ability to pilot or sustain new chips-related training programs

A common theme that surfaced from the field research in all four regions is the pressure on capacity-constrained community colleges working within the limitations of antiquated workforce systems and decades of underinvestment, which in turn can hamper operational, institutional, and programmatic innovation, as well as further development, replication, and scaling of programs. A senior official from one community college, nationally recognized for its strategic and innovative training approaches across industry sectors, pointed out that even the best managed community colleges are constrained in their abilities to undertake the depth of strategic thinking and planning required to keep up with changing employment needs and technology demands, due to being chronically under-resourced.

A prime example of an institution that is both striving to meet the moment and overcome limitations, while also experiencing human, physical, and resource constraints, is upstate New York’s Onondaga Community College. Onondaga was on the right track even before these new investments were on the horizon. Prior to disbursement of the federal chips subsidies and the 2022 announcement of Micron Technology’s $100B chips investment in the region, the community college was already in the process of revising its mechatronics curriculum. (Mechatronics training overlaps significantly with technician skills training.) The goal of that overhaul was to provide opportunities for workers to obtain one-year certifications and two-year associate degrees, according to college officials. These efforts gave the college a good foundation from which to build. While OCC had to pivot and redesign a large part of the curriculum, it was able to do so quickly because of Micron’s support, and it was already actively working on the new program. These efforts enabled it to obtain Micron’s validation of the curriculum.

The college’s mechatronics program now features a dual enrollment track, serving students young as eighth- and ninth-graders (even if they don’t formally matriculate into the program until they graduate from high school) and adults up to their early 50s. With plenty of advanced manufacturing and semiconductor jobs in the region, students armed with this training and credentials are able to write their ticket in the job market, well before the Micron fabs are up and running. 

However, several uncertainties were lurking for the community college. It wasn’t clear at first whether the program was sustainable beyond the pilot or could be expanded to train for other advanced manufacturing jobs. But now, in the program’s third year, it is fully operationalized within the college, and sustainability is less of a problem. Also, until recently, it was challenging for OCC to see how this training connected with other new programs, including apprenticeships, bootcamps, or other training opportunities, like those provided by the newly state-funded “ON-RAMP” or One Network for Advanced Manufacturing Partnerships, a group of workforce development centers offering training for in-demand jobs in the semiconductor and advanced manufacturing industries. OCC has developed apprenticeship models, like Real Life Rosies, skills workshops, and a new bootcamp, set to launch in 2026, that will provide foundational skills to individuals looking to enter careers like semiconductor technicians and be shared with community college partners across the state. 

OCC officials observed that creating new programs requires both expertise and time. One official stated that, “While [OCC] has the expertise, time is in short supply. Faculty are already stretched thin with teaching, updating existing curricula, and managing current grant obligations. This leaves little capacity to dedicate to the development of new instructional programs. This lack of available time slows progress, even when there is clear recognition of the urgency and necessity of expanding these offerings.” 

Regional workforce development challenges also persist. Public transportation to campus is not ideal, and although support programs exist, access remains a barrier. Also, if OCC were to offer a program off its main campus, dedicated faculty would likely be required for that location, as commuting between sites while maintaining a full teaching load would be difficult. Strengthening referral networks and streamlining onboarding and service access would be beneficial. And many students face life challenges with work, childcare, housing, and more, which often interferes with their education. 

Community college officials across all the regions in this study said they face similar challenges as they try to build out institutional capacity and programs in response to demand from the chips sector. Those challenges include: 

  • Finding and hiring sufficient faculty. Finding, hiring, and retaining the requisite number of trained faculty to teach technician-related chips curricula remain top priorities. Community colleges like OCC are limited by both funding and faculty contracts in terms of what salaries can be offered. Many potential instructors earn significantly more in industry, sometimes double what they would make teaching, and are understandably reluctant to take a 50% pay cut. State regulations also can be a challenge. For example, New York State’s K-12 CTE programs often prevent subject-matter experts from teaching due to degree or certification requirements, even when they have extensive real-world experience. These barriers reduce the pipeline of qualified educators at all levels.
  • Capital investments. Costs of equipment for the classroom can also limit what’s practical. Making capital investments in simulation equipment and in buildings to house the programs is expensive, although the investments can be one-time infusions with long-term returns. But technology is constantly evolving, and equipment can also quickly become obsolete.
  • Staffing and accessing funding opportunities. While there are funding opportunities available, navigating them is a challenge for institutions with limited staffing and administrative capacity. The constant shifts in funding priorities, along with the complexity of applications, compliance, and reporting, can make it difficult to respond quickly to new opportunities or recover from unexpected losses. There is a growing need for intermediary organizations or technical assistance providers that can help community colleges manage these processes, build sustainable partnerships, and adapt programming to meet evolving workforce needs.
  • Innovating and scaling pilot programs. Testing out, ramping up, and replicating new programs requires innovation in curriculum and program design to both sustain the new program implementation and keep up with job training requirements.
  • Strategic planning to anticipate future new programs and institutional sustainability. Limited stewardship and strategic governance capabilities exist at community colleges, which are largely unaccustomed to evolving programs quickly in response to corporate demand and technological changes.
  • Connecting and coordinating with other ecosystem partners. The ability to generate “warm handoffs” of students and trainees to other training partners and for synergistic program development and operations remains a work in progress. 

Recognized as critical but underfunded components of our training and education systems, community colleges are expected to do more. And this field research reflects that they are contending with multiple, sometimes overlapping gaps. This could doom the efforts of community colleges and other workforce system partners—including regional workforce development boards, economic development organizations, and regional nonprofit workforce organizations—to conduct outreach and develop the new programs that meet semiconductor companies’ demands. Sustainable funding, enabling community colleges to overcome these gaps and to design, oversee, scale, replicate, and further innovate, is a chronic problem and a function of long-term disinvestment.

A further complication faced by community colleges is that chips companies in some cases have not been fully forthcoming about what portion, if any, of funds earmarked for workforce training they are funneling to the colleges (or other partner workforce institutions for that matter) now or in the future. This is creating immediate uncertainty about building future capacity. And the federal funds, while prodigious, are a one-time infusion. Future medium- and long-term investments in community college capacity must depend on other funding sources and new, creative strategies.  

Finally, even where pockets of strength exist and individual community colleges are modeling improvements, perceptions persist that community colleges are slow and bureaucratic or handicapped by capacity challenges—in ways that prevent them from responding rapidly and innovatively to new industry demands. While these perceptions may not match current realities at community colleges that are pushing to innovate and transform, this image can still dampen corporate and state-level interest in collaborating with or subsidizing them, thus encouraging a vicious cycle. Indeed, research has shown a significant disconnect between community colleges and industry when it comes to collaborating on workforce development. 

Distinctive socioeconomic and historic contexts in regional labor markets hinder workforce development

All four regions covered by this research had already been confronting a shortage of skilled workers, potentially exacerbating the challenges as these investments drive more workforce demand. And unique and region-specific historical, economic, and policy contexts—including demographic trends, economic histories, labor markets, and state workforce policies—complicate worker recruitment, retention, and outreach strategies to reach marginalized populations.

For instance, business and workforce leaders in Austin and Phoenix—regions with growing populations and a pipeline of potential workers—base their assumptions about investments and planning for workforce development needs on future regional population growth patterns and projections. In contrast, while the central Ohio region has a growing population, economic development leaders there were already calculating the need to reach across the state and beyond to fill the number of jobs that were expected once the Intel fabs were up and running. And the state of Ohio’s workforce growth has been stagnant year over year. Even with the slowdown in construction of the Ohio Intel facility, the state continues to face challenges in keeping up supplying trained workers to the slew of other new facilities being built in the central Ohio region, including the recent announcement of Anduril Industries’ new facility, which is slated to employ 4K employees by 2035.

In general, Ohio and upstate New York, as post-industrial regions, have had to contend with unique labor market contraction and demographic challenges, while the two Southwestern regions exhibit newer and growing economies and in-migration population patterns. Both Ohio and upstate New York reflect that slower labor force growth likely remains a challenge for employers, at least compared with the other regions in this study. So these regions are trying to compensate with even more rigorous, targeted outreach, recruitment, and retention strategies. For instance, one community college official referred to the college’s fast-track program as a “restorative strategy,” aimed at boosting labor market participation rates, among other objectives.

Workforce leaders regularly observed they are making up for a “perfect storm” growing out of a combination of the deindustrialization in the 1980s and 1990s and the push to channel individuals into 4-year college degree programs that emptied the workforce of a supply of workers trained for the skills trades in general and high-skilled advanced manufacturing jobs in particular. In Ohio, officials also point to lower than national average labor market participation rates, particularly in Appalachian Ohio (the southeast Ohio region adjacent to central Ohio), making multi-pronged outreach strategies even more critical to recruit all low-income populations and women to be able to meet projected demand for new semiconductor and other advanced manufacturing jobs. 

Conclusion

Current conditions in workforce training writ large across the U.S., and identified in detail by workforce leaders in this study of four regions, severely constrain regional leaders in addressing the talent crisis in advanced manufacturing. These significant investments in the domestic semiconductor sector sound a national call to action about the importance of innovating and fortifying U.S. workforce systems through layered local, state, and national efforts.  

Overall, the ramp-up of workforce training due to these semiconductor investments is putting pressure on already challenged workforce development systems and highlighting gaps and existing barriers to be overcome or eliminated. Identifying these gaps in more detail and how to overcome them is the subject of the next two briefs in this series.

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.