Chipmakers have 67,000 unfilled jobs. An old training trick won't work this time

Semiconductor factories have struggled to fill technical roles for years. A training model built for the 1970s won't help close the gap

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In 1966, two Texas Instruments $TXN managers ran an experiment. They wanted to know how fast an inexperienced worker could become a skilled one. So they redesigned the company's manufacturing training from the ground up, building it for people entering without any relevant skill set. The results were clear: New hires reached full competence faster, made fewer mistakes, and stayed on the job longer than anyone expected.

The semiconductor industry now faces a similar test at a much larger scale. A 2023 report from the Semiconductor Industry Association and Oxford Economics projected that 67,000 technical jobs could go unfilled by 2030, a shortage large enough to send people looking for precedent. One chip-performance researcher, Lizy John, recently pointed back to the 1970s, drawing a direct comparison to when companies trained biology majors and former teachers into 30-year engineering careers in as little as six months.

The 1970s ramp-up was real, and it shaped how the industry still thinks about training today. But the plants those workers walked into don't look anything like the ones now under construction.

Texas Instruments and Motorola's 1970s playbook

The two Texas Instruments managers — Earl R. Gomersall, who ran manufacturing for TI's integrated circuits line, and M. Scott Myers, the company's manager of management research —........

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