Micron Technology plans to invest $100 billion in the creation of a manufacturing facility near the city of Syracuse (USA, New York). Construction will start in 2024 and production will start in the second half of the decade. The company will need up to 9,000 workers, writes The Wall Street Journal, but there may be serious difficulties in hiring them – there simply are not so many suitable personnel in the region.
Image source: wsj.com
In the past two decades, many large companies have left this region, and its working-age population has declined, so it is considered not the most prosperous for doing such a business: here, as well as throughout the country, there is a significant shortage of highly qualified engineers and technicians. At least two other semiconductor manufacturers wanted to build factories here, but they changed their minds after becoming more familiar with the region. The local education system has already begun to take steps to reverse the situation: colleges and universities are reviewing educational programs, aiming them at an increase in the number of new engineers. In the last twenty years, one of the leaders of the local university explained, not only production, but also the personnel reserve has moved abroad. And there are only two or three years to correct the situation.
As a result of the complete outsourcing of the semiconductor industry, the US during the pandemic faced a catastrophic shortage of chips, but was unable to do anything about it. Manufacturers moved to where there was cheap labor and financial incentives from the governments of those countries that sought to build a semiconductor industry at home. Now the United States had to use administrative resources, adopt the Chip Law and allocate tens of billions of dollars for its implementation. Some of them Micron wants to receive as part of this project – the company will start processing documents at the end of the month, plus another $ 5.5 billion promised to allocate the state of New York. The production campus will be fully built only by 2045 – by this time there will be 9,000 employees of Micron itself, another 41,000 jobs will be created by the company’s suppliers and contractors.
Computer mock-up of Micron’s new facility
In the meantime, the situation is much sadder: the peak of regional employment in the Syracuse agglomeration occurred in 2000, and the current figures have not yet even reached the pre-pandemic level. Micron began strategic workforce training: the company committed $10 million to invest in local secondary education, to strengthen curricula in math, science, technology, and engineering; active work is carried out with colleges and universities, whose graduates must be ready to work at the enterprise.
Syracuse University has already set its sights on increasing the number of undergraduate and graduate engineering programs by 50% over the next three to five years. A new semiconductor training program is being launched in the fall by Onondaga County College, which is based in Syracuse. There is even a $10 million plan to build a “clean room” here that mimics the working conditions of a real semiconductor manufacturing facility. During the summer holidays, Micron will fund a “chip camp” for students in local schools, where they will become more familiar with advanced manufacturing technologies. Even builders will need special training, union representatives said.
In the next five years, the demand for engineers for semiconductor manufacturing enterprises in the United States will grow by about 20%. This will not be hindered even by the current decline in the industry, accompanied by a drop in sales of smartphones and PCs. Micron is going to cut the staff by 15%, reduce capital expenditures and reduce the salaries of managers. But plans for the site near Syracuse will not be affected, says company vice president Scott Gatzemeier. TSMC and Intel refused to build enterprises in the region: the first chose Arizona, and the second chose Ohio. Meanwhile, the head of Micron has already held a meeting with the district administration and the leadership of the local university, who assured that they could provide the enterprise with a workforce.
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