We are building fabs faster than we are building the people to run them.
The domestic semiconductor buildout is the largest industrial expansion in a generation. New fabs, expanded fabs, advanced packaging facilities, and the supplier base around all of them. The capital is committed and the construction is underway. The workforce is not.
115,000 jobs. 67,000 at risk. 26,400 of them technicians.
The Semiconductor Industry Association and Oxford Economics project that the U.S. semiconductor workforce will need to grow by roughly 115,000 jobs by 2030, from approximately 345,000 to approximately 460,000. At current training and degree completion rates, about 67,000 of those positions risk going unfilled.
39 percent of that shortfall, roughly 26,400 positions, is technician roles. Most require an associate degree, a certificate, or less.
The largest single category within it is the process technician.
Semiconductor Industry Association and Oxford Economics, "Chipping Away," July 2023. Composition figures from SIA's Semiconductor Workforce Development Policy Blueprint, April 2024.
115,000
Additional U.S. semiconductor jobs needed by 2030
67,000
Of those positions at risk of going unfilled at current completion rates
26,400
Technician positions inside that shortfall — 39 percent of the total
Four structural causes, none of them solved by more training.
Training is employer-specific and non-portable.
A technician trained at one fab holds knowledge that transfers in practice but not on paper. Every move starts over.
Programs are proliferating without a standard.
Community colleges, technical schools, and registered apprenticeship programs are launching semiconductor tracks across the country. Almost none of them share a common definition of what a competent process technician knows.
The role has no professional identity.
Nurses hold licensure. Welders hold AWS certification. Electricians carry a card. Process technicians have a badge number and an internal training record that stops at the parking lot.
Turnover compounds all of it.
Twelve-hour rotating shifts, and in most fab corridors several employers competing inside one metro area. When nothing distinguishes candidates but pay, pay is the only thing that moves them. Every departure takes months of accumulated process judgment out the door.
The connective tissue that turns training into a profession.
Not more training. There is a great deal of training already, and more coming online every quarter.
What is missing is the connective tissue that turns training into a profession:
- A standard of practice that states what the role actually requires
- A credential that is portable across employers and recognized by all of them
- A career structure that gives technicians somewhere to go
- A national body that convenes employers, educators, and technicians around all three
That is what an association does. That is why NASPT exists.
What we are, and what we are not.
NASPT is a new organization in its founding year, being established as a nonprofit workforce body.
Our mission is public workforce benefit: expanding access to skilled semiconductor careers, particularly for people entering without a four-year degree, and strengthening the domestic manufacturing base that depends on them.
The core work is designed to be grant-funded. The standard of practice, the competency framework, workforce research, and curriculum alignment review are to be built as public resources rather than paid products, supported through philanthropic and public workforce funding rather than charged to the technicians who need them.
Funding is being sought through federal semiconductor workforce programs, registered apprenticeship funding, NSF Advanced Technological Education, and regional workforce and economic development partners.
We are not a training provider. We are not a staffing firm. We do not sell software. We are the professional body for a profession that does not yet have one.
Partner with us.
Employers, colleges, apprenticeship sponsors, and workforce agencies will seat the councils that define this profession. That work is starting now.