Wednesday, April 9, 2025

Texas Chip Firms Pivot to Leverage Apprenticeships


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Chip firms increasing their footprint in Texas should change how they method expertise consumption because the semiconductor trade circles again to leveraging apprenticeships. Additionally they educate the broader workforce on the alternatives accessible and the way the trade underpins individuals’s each day lives.

Within the second of two panel discussions hosted by the Nationwide Institute of Innovation and Know-how (NIIT), semiconductor firms rising their footprint in Texas are reworking their tradition to concentrate on abilities over expertise and permit for several types of apprenticeships.

ManpowerGroup understands the realities of the expertise market, senior VP Isaac Hagan stated, and 1000’s of individuals come into its places of work each day making an attempt to determine their profession paths. He stated ManpowerGroup has vastly leveraged NIIT to assist individuals migrate from a manufacturing job to 1 in semiconductors by rising apprenticeship applications.

Hagan stated many firms rent full-time staff from contingent labor—it’s a large avenue for individuals to get employed by firms. “Now we have a very nice mannequin the place individuals can take work that has an apprenticeship program on a brief foundation after which convert them to full-time,” he stated. “It offers employers that flexibility they want.”

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A notable shift for ManpowerGroup because it helps semiconductor and superior manufacturing firms is hiring for abilities reasonably than simply expertise, Hagan stated. “We rent abilities, and we all know what abilities we’d like. We all know the place these abilities exist out there.”

Panel discussion with Texas semiconductor stakeholders.
Panel moderator Michelle Leydin Li (far proper) guided a panel dialogue with Texas semiconductor stakeholders on how they have to adapt to leverage apprenticeships and emphasize abilities over work expertise. From left to proper: Martha Ponge, Steve Armbruster, Johnnie Cain, Clara Neri-Mejia, Isaac Hagan. (Supply: Nationwide Institute of Innovation and Know-how)

Aggressive panorama has broadened

One other new problem is that chip firms are now not simply competing with one another for expertise—different sectors, similar to automotive and different expertise firms, need the identical skillsets, Hagan stated.

Utilized Supplies, which collaborates with staffing firms like ManpowerGroup, should now compete with family model names, added Clara Neri-Mejia, the corporate’s technical program supervisor in expertise growth and workforce growth. “Tesla got here into the image, after which they simply blew every little thing out of the water,” she stated. “We had to have a look at completely different avenues.”

A registered apprentice program was a part of the answer, Neri-Mejia stated, though it wasn’t with out its rising pains—it’s taken time to nurture it from an 80% attrition charge to an 80% retention charge. This system was lacking construction and readability as to what the trail was for individuals—it was a tricky promote internally, too. “Our operations administration group wanted to know what the method was going to be and what the lodging wanted to be to ensure that them to get buy-in.”

Having extra versatile pathways has improved the expertise pool, Neri-Mejia stated, in addition to supplied present staff avenues to develop their careers inside Utilized. She stated didn’t notice the apprenticeship program was going to get a lot consideration. “It simply took a lifetime of its personal.” Along with Austin, Texas, Utilized has comparable applications in California.

Neri-Mejia stated the corporate is taking a look at different methods of delivering apprenticeships, so it has a tiered method.

NIIT president Michael Russo with Clara Neri-Mejia and Applied Materials apprentices.
NIIT president Michael Russo (third from proper) with Clara Neri-Mejia and Utilized Supplies apprentices (Supply: Nationwide Institute of Innovation and Know-how)

Apprenticeships should present a transparent pathway

Flexibility is useful for different firms working in Texas, similar to NXP Semiconductors. Johnnie Cain, front-end operations coaching program supervisor, stated the corporate is upscaling its present workforce because of the work of faculties like Austin Neighborhood Faculty District, which takes on the group sponsorship facet by dealing with monitoring and reporting on apprenticeship progress, in addition to collaboration with NIIT and regional workforce growth organizations.

“It’s vital to ascertain a transparent pathway with construction and the coaching,” Cain stated, which is the place NIIT is available in. “They’ll present that construction as a result of we’ve got manufacturing services each right here in Austin, Texas, and in Chandler, Arizona. Having an analogous construction and between the websites is actually vital.”

GlobalFoundries’ Steve Armbruster.
GlobalFoundries’ Steve Armbruster

Steve Armbruster, international head of individuals and organizational transformation at GlobalFoundries, stated the corporate has developed a unified competency mannequin that led to a expertise hub, which was a comparatively new talent for the corporate—it didn’t occur organically. He stated it took lots of braveness and imaginative and prescient to get to the purpose the place GlobalFoundries now has a number of hundred apprentices throughout its two U.S. fabs.

Armbruster stated bringing in expertise and constructing a workforce is greater than a transactional relationship; it’s concerning the sort of group you’re making an attempt to construct. “You’ve received to rethink the best way you design profession paths and promote individuals,” he stated.

Organizations like NIIT assist to speed up expertise growth and acquisition by eliminating forms, Armbruster stated. “Pace needs to be the norm because the workforce expands.”

Competency trumps expertise

Armbruster encourages semiconductor firms to have a look at their inner expertise methods and inner expertise matching to transform to competency-based progress.

NIIT’s Martha Ponge.
NIIT’s Martha Ponge

Martha Ponge, director of nationwide apprenticeships at NIIT, stated Texas has embraced collaboration as one of many options for its workforce issues. “They knew that one reply wasn’t going to fill all of the wants of all the businesses and that issues wanted to be distinctive sufficient to serve particular employer wants.”

She stated stakeholders should be within the room collectively to speak about what strengths they bring about, what challenges they’ve seen and what options they’ll present. “We have to construct a workforce that helps our total group, and we’re going to must look to distinctive locations that we’ve by no means regarded earlier than.”

Neri-Mejia stated it could seem that Utilized now has all its geese in a row, however it wants the assistance of various teams at completely different instances, together with Workforce Options, Austin Neighborhood Faculty District and NIIT. She stated accepting assist has been instrumental in launching and growing apprenticeships into a company construction that should adapt. “Issues should be altering to ensure that us to accommodate the brand new workforce that’s approaching board.”

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