Recent Release | 25 Jul 2023

Chipping Away: Assessing and addressing the labor market gap facing the US semiconductor industry

Economic Consulting Team

Oxford Economics

Thanks in large part to enactment of the landmark 2022 CHIPS and Science Act, a significant share of expected new chip manufacturing capacity and R&D is expected to be located in the US.

We project the semiconductor industry’s US-based workforce will grow by nearly 115,000 jobs by 2030, from approximately 345,000 jobs today to approximately 460,000 jobs by the end of the decade. We estimate that roughly 67,000, or 58%, of these new jobs risk going unfilled at current degree completion rates. Of the unfilled jobs:

• 39% will be technicians, most of whom have two-year degrees or less;
• 35% will be computer scientists, or engineers with four-year degrees; and
• 26% will be engineers at the master’s or PhD level.

For the US economy as a whole, we estimate that 3.85 million additional jobs in these three technical fields will be created by the end of 2030. Of those, 1.4 million jobs risk going unfilled unless the pipeline for such workers is expanded.

To address the skills gap facing the broader economy and the semiconductor industry, we present three core recommendations to strengthen the US technical workforce:

• Strengthen support for regional partnerships and programs aimed at growing the pipeline for skilled technicians for semiconductor manufacturing and other advanced manufacturing sectors.
• Grow the domestic STEM pipeline for engineers and computer scientists vital to the semiconductor industry and other sectors that are critical to the future economy.
• Retain and attract more international advanced degree students within the US economy.

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The experts behind the research

Our economic consulting team are world leaders in quantitative economic analysis, working with clients around the globe and across sectors to build models, forecast markets and evaluate interventions using state-of-the art techniques. Lead consultants on this project were:

Dan Martin

Senior Economist, Economic Impact

Hamilton Galloway

Head of Consultancy, Americas

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