America's Chip Moonshot Should Take Aim At Its Education System (ft.com) 86
An anonymous reader shares a report: In the decade following US President John F Kennedy's 1961 announcement of America's mission to put a man on the moon, the number of physical science PhDs tripled, and that of engineering PhDs quadrupled. Now, the country is embarking on a moonshot to rebuild the semiconductor fabrication industry. Corporations that want a cut of the $39bn in manufacturing incentives within the Chips and Science Act programme can start filing their applications for subsidies on Tuesday. In order to get them, they'll have to show that they are contributing to something that may be even more difficult than putting a man in space: building a 21st-century workforce. America has plenty of four-year graduates with crushing debt (the national average for federal loan debts is more than $37,000 a student) and underwhelming job prospects. It also has plenty of college dropouts and young people with high-school degrees who are trying to make ends meet through minimum-wage jobs supplemented by gig work.
What it lacks are the machinists, carpenters, contractors and technicians who will build the new fabrication facilities. It also needs to triple the number of college graduates in semiconductor-related fields, such as engineering, over the next decade, according to commerce secretary Gina Raimondo. Raimondo, who is well on her way to becoming the industrial strategy tsar of the administration, gave a speech to this effect earlier this month. In it, she underscored not only the need to rebuild chip manufacturing in a world in which the US and China will lead separate tech ecosystems, but also to ensure that there are enough domestic workers to do so. "If you talk to the CEOs of companies like TSMC and Samsung [both of which are launching fabs in the US], they are worried about finding these people here," Raimondo told me. She cites workforce development -- alongside scale and transparency -- as major hurdles that must be overcome to meet the administration's goals.
What it lacks are the machinists, carpenters, contractors and technicians who will build the new fabrication facilities. It also needs to triple the number of college graduates in semiconductor-related fields, such as engineering, over the next decade, according to commerce secretary Gina Raimondo. Raimondo, who is well on her way to becoming the industrial strategy tsar of the administration, gave a speech to this effect earlier this month. In it, she underscored not only the need to rebuild chip manufacturing in a world in which the US and China will lead separate tech ecosystems, but also to ensure that there are enough domestic workers to do so. "If you talk to the CEOs of companies like TSMC and Samsung [both of which are launching fabs in the US], they are worried about finding these people here," Raimondo told me. She cites workforce development -- alongside scale and transparency -- as major hurdles that must be overcome to meet the administration's goals.
Re: (Score:2)
Big corporations are a part of the decline. Skilled workforces for them are optional in many ways Corporations reflect society in general and right now society is not so keen about real technology, and partially hostile to real science. Society is however all excited about "high tech", which is a fancy way of saying "social media", since any half assed web site front is considered "tech" if they have at least one computer on premises (this may change once everything's in the cloud so that the physical co
Re: (Score:2)
... who will worry about gender identity, systemic oppression
We aren't gonna beat the Chinese if we fail to use half our population.
America graduates 70,000 engineers/year. China graduates 400,000.
You can't have your cake and eat it
You can if you make twice as many cakes.
Re: (Score:2)
Well you won't go far in business, if you make insensitive remarks to your boss who may be a member of a minority, or finding people willing to mentor you in your job, because opps they were Gay and you didn't know, what that person is Hispanic where you thought they were white!
The general demographics of the United States has become more diverse. You no longer can assume that you will work with, or have customers who are all white males anymore. You are going to have to deal with people who look, act, an
Re: But if you teach kids useful skills... (Score:1)
On the job training (Score:2)
These are jobs in the trades, which are ideal for on the job training and apprenticeships. So just start offering them. These aren't jobs which require PhDs or even college education, so it should take almost no time at all (comparatively) to fix this problem.
Re: (Score:1)
"college graduates in semiconductor-related fields, such as engineering" is not so easy to ramp up.
Re: (Score:2)
"college graduates in semiconductor-related fields, such as engineering" is not so easy to ramp up.
Yes, there was one job mentioned which requires an engineering degree, so immigration is likely the short term answer there. But the vast majority of jobs mentioned are in the trades.
Re: (Score:1)
I've worked in semiconductor manufacturing and I can assure you, more than just one kind of job there requires an engineering degree.
Re: (Score:2)
I've worked in semiconductor manufacturing and I can assure you, more than just one kind of job there requires an engineering degree.
The problem is nothing really beats on the job experience for all of those jobs. There is a major lack that throwing money at won’t fix. If nothing had been offshored then there wouldn’t be a lack of talent, it would have grown with the industry.
Re: (Score:1)
"If nothing had been offshored then there wouldn’t be a lack of talent"
That may well be true, but most of it was in fact offshored and the jobs dried up. When the jobs return the talent eventually will too, but the sector has to be seeded with investment money or it won't happen. And then of course TSMC and Samsung could also import workers from their existing fabs to ramp things up and provide training.
Re: (Score:2)
These are shit jobs unless you happen to own the company. Then you are a small business owner and not a tradesmen.
Re: (Score:3)
Stop making this out like this is some great career path. These are shit jobs unless you happen to own the company. Then you are a small business owner and not a tradesmen.
Many trades are very good career paths for most people. And now that the US is getting semi-serious about infrastructure these careers will likely get even better in the near future. There are some problematic trades like carpentry where pay in quite low with little relief in sight, but that is not true across the board.
Not everyone is going to make $150k+ per year as a lawyer or software engineer. The US needs good trade jobs paying $80k per year, which is plenty to raise a family on in most places.
Re: On the job training (Score:2)
And now that the US is getting semi-serious about infrastructure...
Are we, now.
Re: (Score:1)
When it gets semi-serious about semiconductors it'll be 25% serious about conductors.
Re: (Score:2)
Are we not, now.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
"The average Pipefitter salary in the United States is $50,728 as of January 26, 2023, but the range typically falls between $42,122 and $61,580."
https://www.salary.com/researc... [salary.com]
?? yikes
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Look up those ten dollar words before you use them unless you're completely sure what they mean.
Re: (Score:3)
You clearly haven’t had any plumbing work done recently.
Re: (Score:2)
The semiconductor industry is a demanding and financially rewarding field. There aren't that many that can make it in the realm of meaningful and productive R&D of advanced processes. Even optimizing older nodes takes a lot of education and experience (and can pay well).
It's bizarre that you would respond thusly. The correct response would be to point out that the intrinsic complexity of silicon fabrication would put trades-level education far below that which would be necessary to enter the field.
Re: (Score:2)
Right, the trades jobs are there for when you need to make and staff a new fab plant. But to get a new plant that's worthy of competing internationally you first need new designs.
Re: (Score:2)
Only for when you build the plant, not staff it. The entire thrust of this submission is ridiculous, as if the #1 problem facing Intel (for example) is the construction of the fab itself. It isn't. Staffing the fan and having good process technology is far more important and difficult.
Re: (Score:2)
Fab not fan, bleh.
Re:On the job training (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm a HUGE supporter of the trades. ChatGPT isn't replacing a carpenter any time soon. But they only make a small part of the jobs in discussion here, and those jobs are mostly temporary. However... there's a looming shortage of trades in North America, as boomers and gen-x are reaching retirement. I forget where I read it first, that "US millennials are the least skilled generation for their age in history", but it was a pretty well-stated case. This isn't because of character flaws, but the circumstances they grew up within. My family is heavy on trades, and for decades their advice has been, "The more grey hair your contractor has, the better."
Sadly, I also think that the trades are suffering under historically shitty tools and materials. I bought a house this year, and it was built in 1986. An 8 hour inspection showed the place to be better than specification top to bottom. Douglas fir everywhere, every wire properly secured, no leaking pipe joints, no cracking in the drywall, good insulation throughout... solid. By contrast, every single person I know who has a home built after 2000 has terrible stories. Cheaper wins.
Chip industry clueless about training? (Score:5, Insightful)
I met with an old college friend in the chip industry in CA last week. He was complaining that they have been trying for a year to fill an engineering position, and that therefore he was working terribly long hours to get all the work done.
I asked him if he knew how to build ICs when he left college. He said, no, but that his business (a very large, well known chip maker) had no internship or training programs.
This absence of employee training is incredibly short-sighted, and will lead to disaster when my friend gets ill or retires, but probably pleases the immediate bottom line for the shareholders.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3)
But also companies need long term planning. Part of that planning is realizing they will need employees who don't know what the future jobs are going to be but who are prepared for them. Ie, hire the noob and do some training now. Some may leave but some will also stay, especially if they get promoted along the way.
But long term planning has a snag when most companies are chasing short term quarterly results. All that dead weight that might pay off in the future looks bad.
Re: (Score:2)
One of my sons is now doing recruiting and it's hard to get people that want to work. Semiconductor manufacturing deals with some fairly volatile chemicals and strict processes. You start saying that it'll be a rewarding but sometimes stressful job and people freak out; they want the money without the work or the "danger."
They want H1-Bs (Score:3, Insightful)
You're thinking like a business owner, not a "captain of industry". These multi-nationals are laser focused on depressing wages. Your wages.
So the trades are kinda dead (Score:3)
Remember, when you see salaries reported by the industry bosses they're averages. A handful of high earners with advanced skills (or more often doing high risk work) skew those numbers.
Also, remember that kind of work _destroys_ your body. You can't do it much past 50, and that's if you're lucky. A frie
Re: (Score:2)
You're getting sidetracked. Can we discuss the semiconductor industry instead? Thanks.
We are (Score:2)
That was GP's point. That we've got bottlenecks in our economy from a lack of skilled blue collar workers. My point to add to that is the lack is because of low pay and because we don't value them like we should. But either way it means projects take longer to build.
Re: (Score:2)
I call bushit. See above posts, but if anyone thinks the main problem facing American semiconductor production is finding the labor necessary to build facilities then they're nuts.
Re: (Score:2)
Yes, we need those workers, but that hardly matters if we're not paying them enough to get by. Anyone who can will stay out of the trades.
Median wages in the US are about $55k per year. Median wages for trades vary greatly, but except for maybe carpentry they are all above $55k. It's really hard to tell what median pay is for these workers because the government includes bus drivers and janitors into the same bucket as electricians and welders. It makes the averages look far lower than they actually are for skilled trades.
My guess is you probably have a third to half of all working Americans who would be better off in the trades at current pa
Median wage for a Carpenter (Score:2)
My kid has a STEM Degree. They started at $27/hr and it's low because they moved to a state with shit pay. So $56k/yr out the door in a low pay state and lots of room to move up and out. I briefly worked as an electrician, not much before I gave up and went back to IT. But a Journyman tops out around $22/hr and a Master might make $30 if they can land a *real* nice gig. Th
salary and benefits (Score:2)
> What it lacks are the machinists, carpenters, contractors and technicians who will build the new fabrication facilities.
No, what is missing is a living wage. All of those jobs start at below the living wage, you can make more money later but mostly if you work for yourself. Working form someone else in those roles will always hold you back.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: salary and benefits (Score:3)
I wouldn't rely too heavily on market forces to take care of people. As an economic system it doesn't have feeling, emapthy, or long-term plans. There are extra ingredients we must supply to have a functioning society.
Re: (Score:2)
Well, in construction, etc....a LOT of wage suppression is due to the high influx of illegal, cash under the table paid immigrants.
Enforce citizen only work in the US and that will help.
But even so...those jobs listed are NOT minimum wage jobs....
Even today, skilled tradesmen can make a health
Re: (Score:2)
No, what is missing is a living wage. All of those jobs start at below the living wage,
That's not a huge problem, college starts at below living wage, too. You have to pay to go to college.
Re: (Score:3)
That is the interesting part, really. The government will give you pretty much unlimited loans to get an 'education' with the hope that you obtain the education AND that you do something productive with that education. What this has done is make college super expensive and highly profitable.
What support can one get for going into the trades? Can you get support now (say a government loan) to help you out for the first couple years while you make less than a living wage?
Blue collar workers are missing becaus
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
> Maximum loan amount: Up to $5,500 annually, depending on your year, for up to $23,000 total
Yep, so generous.
Meanwhile, my ex has more in student loans than we had in mortgage. She spent a LOT getting a Master's at a school you've heard of. Thanks to the pandemic she hasn't made a payment in a couple of years. She spent more in one semester than someone in trade school could get in total. Not even close to the same thing.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:salary and benefits (Score:4, Informative)
> What it lacks are the machinists, carpenters, contractors and technicians who will build the new fabrication facilities.
No, what is missing is a living wage. All of those jobs start at below the living wage, you can make more money later but mostly if you work for yourself. Working form someone else in those roles will always hold you back.
Those jobs don't pay minimum wage.
My first job at 16 years old was as a motorcycle mechanic (self taught) and I made 5x the minimum wage. My friends worked in fast food and made minumum wage.
Raising minimum wage would have done nothing for me, but my friends would be replaced by kiosks. Which has already happened.
If you're an adult trying to survive on minimum wage, you've made a terrible mistake.
Re: (Score:2)
I said 'living wage'. You seem to assume that I'm advocating for an increase in the minimum wage, that is not what I'm saying at all. The kids at the local burger joint and coffee shop make plenty for what they do. We are talking about careers here, right?
I've seen a number of articles recently talking about a shortage of skilled labor. What I am saying is the prospects are not great (for the most part), and the support structure is not there in the way it is for college kids.
What issues? (Score:2)
I have a university degree (Score:3)
admittedly from a time when getting a university degree actually increased your chance to land a nice job. After 10 years of computer engineering grind, I retrained as a gunsmith. It was a 3-year degree in what is essentially precision machining and adjusting. I funded this with my stupid internet bubble money.
That was the best career move I ever made: you have no idea how high a salary a guy who can work with his brain AND with his hands can command in companies not large enough to be totally crippled by unions. I don't work as a gunsmith anymore, but the skills I learned to become one have paid for themselves 10 times over already.
I get that you've got .com money (Score:2)
You were kicked out of computer engineering by cheap overseas labor. Guns are harder to import, and there was a huge boom in them around the time you entered the job market. It was a good career move because you went from one boom (.com) to another boom (gunsmithing).
Lack of Unions didn't increase your pay. Your boss didn't pay you more because of your amazing negotiating skills. He
Re:I get that you've got .com money (Score:5, Interesting)
Yes you're correct: I'm old enough to recognize I caught the tail end of the post war boom and I got to enjoy a true career with a decent starting salary, a continuous increase, no unemployement and more or less no hardship to find or keep a job. Today's young professional aren't nearly that lucky.
Honestly, when I see the situation they're in today, I don't know how many of them don't become bitter against us older folks (or our boomer parents) and take up arms or something. This generation is the first one that has it worse than the previous one almost guaranteed since birth and they know it. And the ones to come will have it even harder, just as guaranteed. Quite frankly, I see a war on the horizon - hopefully after I'm gone.
As to your comments: I wasn't kicked out of computer engineering. I quit because the overtime was stupid. Like I said, I retrained. I worked with my hands for a few years, got into quality control, then quality assurance, then started designing testing equipment for quality control, then got back into programming that way because, well, the testing equipment need software.
Also, I've always avoided companies with NO unions. Unions are good. I like unions. What I don't like is when the companies grow so large and the unions so powerful that they paralyze the company and stiffle the employees' ability to put their skills to good use. I quit a large firearms manufacture because of this: I liked the place and I liked the job, but I was barred from ever touching a milling machine, a computer, or anything else I could do because it was outside my scope of employment as a QA engineer. As a result, I had to request - and wait for week - stuff I could do myself in an hour. It was so stupid I ended up leaving.
Re: (Score:2)
What field are you currently in? I have also wondered about getting into commercial plumbing or welding, or at least being trained in it in case working in IT just gets boring. I don't think I'll ever "not know" how to operate in the field. I just don't know if I can keep doing the same style of ops for decades.
We were told working with our hands... (Score:2)
Was for losers. Everyone must go to college. This was all you heard in the 90s and 00s. Absolutely zero encouragement to go into trades, ever. Sounds like we did this to ourselves.
Re: (Score:3)
So which is it? "Trades good / college bad" or
Re: (Score:3)
It's greed bad, college and trades both good. The ruling class has seen their total compensation skyrocket over the last few decades, while real wages for people who actually work have decreased. Then we're told it's our fault, we're doing something wrong. No, the already rich are just running off with all the money.
Re: (Score:2)
Really? (Score:2)
Is the premise of this really true? That we don't have enough carpenters? It seems just as likely that this narrative is designed to offer support for the current administration's immigration policy, which favors unskilled and semi-skilled labor. Where the US is sorely lacking is in quality STEM education, starting right down in elementary school. The US needs to lead in innovation, not in carpentry and plumbing.
In the years after WWII, the US had an enormous influx of scientists and engineers from Euro
Re: (Score:2)
Is the premise of this really true? That we don't have enough carpenters?
"Enough" is a judgement call, but one of the main reasons housing construction costs are so high right now is the lack of carpenters.
Re: (Score:2)
"Enough" is a judgement call, but one of the main reasons housing construction costs are so high right now is the lack of carpenters.
That doesn't really add up. Carpenter salary has been rising slower than inflation, unlike construction costs.
Re: (Score:2)
We put all our eggs in the wrong basket (Score:1)
We outsourced our manufacturing know-how to China, and are now feeling the pain of reinventing that.
Re: (Score:3)
We outsourced our manufacturing know-how to China, and are now feeling the pain of reinventing that.
I was going to say pretty much the same thing, although not specifically regarding China.
What we have come to call globalization evolved with a focus on extreme region-specific specialization. As such, it's a "short-term gain for long-term pain" scenario.
First, it makes access to critical goods more vulnerable to wars, politics, natural disasters, weather, ailing economies, and any number of other variables. Second, it results in the atrophy of the local expertise and infrastructure needed to make those cri
Re: (Score:1)
The economic idea of "comparative advantage" has merit on paper, but is not resilient to international disturbances. Because heavily globalization has never been heavy tested under duress, the downsides were mostly theoretical. But a combo of pandemic and a larger braver China is shining a light on comparative advantage downsides.
There should still probably be a degree of it going on to keep industries competitive, but going 100% has proven too risky.
need more trades in tech and less theory based (Score:2)
need more trades in tech and less theroy based college.
And we need to get rid of the need college as that as gone up what happens when basic jobs need an min of an masters with PHD preferred? and you get people with years of college with big skill gaps with docker level loans for jobs that pay way less then what dockers make.
My school was insane. (Score:5, Interesting)
My schooling was very much about falling into line, not going against anything the school supported, not making the school ever look bad, etc. It was not at all interested in my education but rather making sure I didn't disrupt their income streams or make them lose face.
My education was about showing people that if they assert their rights, they will be squashed hard. We were taught by example how we shouldn't care about ourselves at all and should just fall on any sword for someone older or more "powerful". When politicians visited the school certain kids were told to stay home, kids who wore chains and black shirts were made to remove things or leave.
My school was about never using a shortcut if you were lucky enough to find one. ALWAYS show all your work and do things the hard way, shortcuts are cheating. My school was about teaching us that anything we were not explicitly allowed to do was by-default forbidden.
I grew up in Central Illinois near these weird sects of people that in this modern day still live the Puritan style of living. Literal bible thumping excommunication-women-should-cover-their-heads-and-be-quiet types. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apostolic_Christian_Church). These beliefs flooded into my school system despite growing up in the 90's. I am successful because I basically lived opposite to how my schooling taught me. We don't need any more of this garbage.
Re: (Score:2)
I was accused of cheating in 5th grade because I balanced a mock checkbook by addition instead of subtraction. This exercise was supposed to take 15 minutes, it took me two. This isn't chatGPT. This is balancing a checkbook, without a calculator, in my head.
Re: (Score:2)
Ironically, you've said far more about religious extremism in Central Illinois than their education system that's infected with it.
Root cause analysis.
Re: (Score:2)
You forgot the pep rallies. Surely you had them, right?
If you've got the spirit, let's hear it. Then you yell out your class year as loud as you can. Spoiler: the juniors always win, because they've got peak experience and haven't totally checked out yet like most of the seniors who are sitting there thinking about impending adulthood and/or getting high in the woods some place.
Re: (Score:2)
> kids who wore chains and black shirts were made to remove things or leave.
Why is this terrible? Schools, all over the world, expect kids to conform to dress standards. I did not go to school in US. We wore uniforms on 5 days and had a casual day. Even on casual day, certain basic expectations were expected. This was not puritanical or even a Christian setting. American schools look very chaotic and undisciplined to me.
We never talked back to teachers and we expected an occasional lapse in justice from
Maybe? (Score:4, Informative)
Maybe it would be generally beneficial to our country in an "a rising tide lifts all boats" sort of way if we focused on things like actual STEM education, teaching skills and knowledge instead of drag strip shows for the kids and making "grievance" required primary subject it is today?
Set actual benchmark goals for test subjects, that aren't modified by the students' skin colors? Pay teachers more, BUT if they fail to get their own benchmark-levels of students over the performance testing, then they themselves need more support, more training, more education.
My aunt was a primary school teacher, principal, and ultimately superintendent of her suburban/urban district for 30+ years. She said that when students didn't perform at grade level she saw it as a failure not of the student, but of the teacher to teach successfully.
Her administration immediately saw that as an emergency not to punish the students and teachers, but to engage that teacher and their peers to figure out how the communication wasn't working, and to try any way possible to support/him her in getting better at teaching to improve student outcomes.
She had a lot of comments about teachers today who have BLM and gay pride flags in their classrooms; suffice to say that she likened it to just the opposite side of the repellent uber-America nationalism she saw in the late 50s and early 60s.
Waiting for that unending stream of -1,Troll downvotes.
Re:Maybe? (Score:4, Insightful)
Have you ever, once, witnessed a classroom where "drag strip shows" or "grievances" make up more than a trivial amount of classroom instruction? Do you think this is so common that it has a real effect on education as a whole?
Literally, where you get this idea from? What website told you that "drag strip shows" are distracting teachers from teaching engineering principles? It's so bizarre.
It comes across like you're just parroting/amplifying the recent right wing bullshit where teachers are demonized for imaginary reasons, to score political points with people who don't know better.
I'm a teacher. I have a gay pride poster up in the corner of my classroom, because why the fuck not, it's a group that takes a lot of shit. But while I hope it gives a quiet affirmation, it's not like it consumes class time or gets in the way of an education.
While I'm sure you are vastly over-simplifying or imagining your aunt's beliefs - they are, as stated, nonsense. "If a student doesn't perform at grade level" can come from a number of reasons, and "failure of the teacher" is just one. What about - failure of the parent? Failure of the previous school system? The student is just low IQ? Maybe the school has placed an impossible situation on the teacher such as having 32 first graders all taught by one teacher - can the teacher really be blamed? Maybe the students are poor have unstable housing? Maybe the students have to be bussed in/out, an hour each way? Maybe they have mental health issues preventing them from studying effectively? Maybe they speak a language besides English at home?
Reducing it to: "It's a failure of the teacher to teach successfully" just doesn't hold up to much thought.
Re: (Score:2)
the problem isn't training (Score:5, Interesting)
The problem isn't training. The problem is compensation. Engineering is losing bright minds to wall street, and its no wonder. Entry level quants make double what an engineer makes.
plenty of trained engineers in semiconductors... (Score:2, Interesting)
...have been laid off in Silicon Valley and driven into retirement.
I and my wife are two of them.
Stop lumping education into a blob (Score:2)
What it lacks are the machinists, carpenters, contractors and technicians who will build the new fabrication facilities.
These can be handled in trade schools or programs that can teach somebody to be proficient within a couple of years. It doesn't take a PhD to do N-Axis machining or manual machining for that matter. Semiconductor engineering, lithography, and process handling are highly skilled but I now have two sons working in the industry. Both don't have Semiconductor specialty degrees but both were in the military.
We need to stop making it harder on people to succeed. On-the-job-training (OJT), Apprentice programs etc.
Baltimore and the great Math Fail (Score:1)
I’m not sure how representative Baltimore is of the USA education system but.
Project Baltimore combed through the scores at all 150 City Schools where the state math test was given.
Project Baltimore found, in 23 Baltimore City schools, there were zero students who tested proficient in math. Not a single student.
“It just sounds like these schools, now, have turned into essentially babysitters with no accountability,” said Patterson. “This is the future of our city. We’ve got to
Here is one solution... (Score:1)
Supply & Demand (Score:2)
These stories are always written by people who conveniently forget how supply and demand works when it comes to matters of labor. Degrees are expensive and only getting more expensive. If you want more people to choose to expend their labor in a given market, raise the compensation offered in that market. What these types always want is more people to make the bad choice to expend resources to enter a field where the compensation doesn't justify the expense in attaining certification. If the sector needs lo
Re: (Score:1)