Where Are All the Skilled Semiconductor Professionals?
An Illinois Tech student works on a DMG Mori advanced manufacturing machine.
As the United States Department of Commerce has ramped up its message that more skilled workers are desperately needed in the semiconductor industry, Illinois Institute of Technology is extending its lead in the field, with an unprecedented industry partnership that aims to soon serve as a nationally recognized workforce development and research engine, on top of expanding programs in related high-tech disciplines.
In summer 2023 United States Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, during a virtual discussion on a large Generation Z jobs platform, called on students at every level of education to pursue careers in the semiconductor industry. Semiconductor jobs are vital because of their use—semiconductors are tiny data processors required to build virtually every piece of electronics—or products that require electronics. Cars, for instance, require hundreds of semiconductors to manufacture.
“All innovation in the future rests on semiconductors,” Raimondo said in her online discussion with students.
Raimondo called on universities to triple the number of graduates in semiconductor-related fields. In a public release about the discussion, the commerce department cited industry data showing a shortage of 300,000 engineers and 90,000 technical workers in those fields by 2030.
Months before Raimondo’s outreach event, in December 2022, Illinois Tech announced its intention to engage in a partnership with DMG MORI to establish what is now called the National Institute for Advanced Manufacturing—one of the nation’s first joint university and industry academies to train advanced manufacturing workforces.
The intent of the institute is two-fold: to be a workforce development engine for local and regional manufacturing companies to revive the advanced manufacturing industry in the United States, including the semiconductor industry, and to be an applied research arm to develop new advanced manufacturing technologies in collaboration with industry.
“We are currently developing a portfolio of community college, four-year university, and industry partners to begin building out the workforce development arm. The aim will be a portfolio of industry-aligned, for-credit degree and certificate programs, as well as non-credit upskilling and reskilling for workers in this sector: from skilled labor to highly technical practitioners,” says Kenneth T. Christensen, Illinois Tech provost and senior vice president for academic affairs. “These plans interface with the upstream portion of the advanced manufacturing chain feeding into the semiconductor industry, meaning the machines that make the machines that fabricate chips.”
In short, one of the primary goals of the national institute—located at Illinois Tech’s historic Bronzeville campus on the South Side of Chicago—is to help the Chicago region become a hub for developing and supporting a local and national workforce of high-growth, high-paying, and high-tech manufacturing jobs.
Additionally, Illinois Tech is already offering a sensor technology master's degree program, and is developing a certificate program as an opportunity for military veterans to improve their skills in related high-tech fields with the help of a National Science Foundation grant.
“These programs are examples of how Illinois Tech is evolving its educational offerings to meet workforce needs in high-demand technology areas and to provide inclusive access to learners from a diverse set of backgrounds and experiences,” says Christensen. “We are also broadening these educational offerings outside of the normal degree construct to ensure relevance for as broad a range of learners as possible.”
Raimondo noted in her online discussion that while the U.S. founded the semiconductor manufacturing industry and at one point made 40 percent of all chips world-wide, that total has now dipped to 10 percent. The federal government is now focusing on turning that trend around. In 2022 the U.S. Congress passed the CHIPS and Science Act, which provides roughly $280 billion in new funding to boost research and manufacturing of semiconductors in the U.S.
“In the process of doing that, we will create a quarter of a million, high-paying, six-figure jobs in the semiconductor industry, and we need people to be trained to take those jobs,” Raimondo said. “There will be jobs created at every level. Obviously heavy on engineering, heavy on design, heavy on software and digital capacity.”