Speaker 1: This battle isn't going away, and it's a battle between nations,
Speaker 1: a battle within nations, and it's going to be a
Speaker 1: feature of the international economy for decades to come. From
Speaker 1: Bloomberg News and iHeartRadio, it's the big day. I'm West
Speaker 1: Cansova today. The war for workers is just getting started.
Speaker 1: Historic unemployment in the US right now means there are
Speaker 1: many more jobs available than workers willing to fill them,
Speaker 1: and that means employers have to work harder to attract
Speaker 1: new talent and hang on to the employees they have.
Speaker 1: When this happened in the past, it was usually just
Speaker 1: a matter of time before the economy cooled, the job
Speaker 1: market tightened again, and companies seized back the advantage. That
Speaker 1: might not be the case this time around. Me Sean
Speaker 1: Donn and Bloomberg's senior economics writer and friend of the
Speaker 1: Big Tag podcast, is back to tell us how even
Speaker 1: some of the biggest, best known companies like Intel are
Speaker 1: preparing for a future in which they have to compete
Speaker 1: for every worker. Sean, glad to have you back, people wars.
Speaker 1: That's how you've been describing the job market of the future.
Speaker 1: Can you start by painting a picture of the current
Speaker 1: mismatch between jobs and workers, and why you think it's
Speaker 1: going to become even harder for companies to fill out
Speaker 1: their ranks in the years ahead. So if you look
Speaker 1: out at US economy today, everywhere you look, you see
Speaker 1: shortages of workers, and there's a temptation that we have
Speaker 1: to blame that on the pandemic. Right. Pandemic upended how
Speaker 1: we think about work to put a lot of people
Speaker 1: out of work and then back into work when the
Speaker 1: economic response happened. It also is a story though, about
Speaker 1: demographics in America and the moment that America finds itself at.
Speaker 1: One of the great competitive advantages that the American economy
Speaker 1: has had almost since its inception has been people. It
Speaker 1: attracts a lot of people, and it has through its
Speaker 1: history it has always been you know this idea, it's
Speaker 1: this honey pot for talent around the world, and through immigration,
Speaker 1: through birth rates and so on, the population has grown,
Speaker 1: and as the population grows, the economy grows. It's this
Speaker 1: amazing resource. Well, for the first time in its history,
Speaker 1: America is confronting a problem now whereby its working age
Speaker 1: population is growing at its slowest rate since at least
Speaker 1: nineteen sixteen. Quite possibly since the end of World War
Speaker 1: Two and is likely to shrink in the years to come.
Speaker 1: Take that apart a little bit, what are the different
Speaker 1: pieces of that pause. So the biggest piece of that
Speaker 1: puzzle is this generation, the baby boomers, who were born
Speaker 1: in the decade after World War Two and have been
Speaker 1: the biggest presence in the American labor force ever since.
Speaker 1: They're retiring. They're cycling out, and that is hitting all
Speaker 1: sorts of professions, from construction workers to police men and
Speaker 1: women to manufacturing. All these key parts of the economy
Speaker 1: are losing this big cohort of people. The other end
Speaker 1: of that is there's fewer babies being born, and there
Speaker 1: were fewer babies born eighteen years ago, which means there's
Speaker 1: fewer people young people coming into the workforce. And that's
Speaker 1: not even the end of it. There are still more
Speaker 1: cross currents, right, and then there's immigration. This goes back
Speaker 1: to the nineteenth century. One of the ways the US
Speaker 1: has built this incredible workforce has been through immigration. And
Speaker 1: what we've seen since twenty sixteen and the election of
Speaker 1: Donald Trump has been a slowdown in the number of
Speaker 1: migrants coming into America, which means again, this is less
Speaker 1: working age migrants coming into America, which means less workers
Speaker 1: in America. You started out by saying that we think
Speaker 1: of this as a COVID problem, but it's not. But
Speaker 1: COVID does play a role in that, Is that right? Oh? Absolutely, Look,
Speaker 1: we lost more than a million people in America as
Speaker 1: a result of COVID. That clearly has had an impact
Speaker 1: on the labor for us. Also, you know, there was
Speaker 1: a pandemic slowdown in immigration the borders were closed. That
Speaker 1: had an impact as well. But that impact is on
Speaker 1: top of this bigger, broader demographic impact that we really
Speaker 1: are just at the start of. We're at the start
Speaker 1: of this chapter in American economic history. And so companies
Speaker 1: of all kinds, employers of all kinds are looking at
Speaker 1: their situation now and saying we need workers. They're looking
Speaker 1: down the road and saying we're going to need workers.
Speaker 1: And your story focuses on one of those companies is
Speaker 1: one we all know, Intel, the computer chip makers, probably
Speaker 1: got a chip in something in your pocket or something
Speaker 1: on your desk, and they're building a big new plant
Speaker 1: in Ohio and thinking, what are we going to do
Speaker 1: for workers? What did you find? So this is one
Speaker 1: of the great projects. It's not just that we know
Speaker 1: Intel and that we have these chips in our pockets
Speaker 1: and our phones and in our cars. It's also that
Speaker 1: if you look at American economic policy right now and
Speaker 1: America's economic ambitions, getting semiconductor production back in this land
Speaker 1: is a huge priority for the Biden administration, in fact,
Speaker 1: a bipartisan priority. And Intel this project in Licking County, Ohio,
Speaker 1: a place called New Albany, in a farm field there
Speaker 1: where they're going to build two enormous semiconductor chip plants
Speaker 1: and eventually five times as many as well around there.
Speaker 1: It's a huge twenty billion dollar project. But right now
Speaker 1: they are scrambling to find not just the workers to
Speaker 1: go into that plant there's about three thousand workers that
Speaker 1: they'll need in that plant two or three years from
Speaker 1: now when it opens, but also the seven thousand workers
Speaker 1: that they need to build that plant. So this is
Speaker 1: an interesting sort of puzzle because on the one hand,
Speaker 1: they have a problem right now, you say they need
Speaker 1: to build this thing, who is going to build it?
Speaker 1: But then they're thinking who will do the highly skilled
Speaker 1: jobs necessary to build these very complex components. Right, So,
Speaker 1: if you break it down, there is Intel's problem two
Speaker 1: or three years from now in terms of training the
Speaker 1: people that needs those three thousand workers it needs initially.
Speaker 1: And then there's the problem that it's big contractor, Bechtel has,
Speaker 1: which is finding those seven thousand workers. Bechtel says it
Speaker 1: is going to need to bring forty percent of those
Speaker 1: workers from probably out of state, from other projects because
Speaker 1: they're just not available locally. Another build to build the plant.
Speaker 1: This is pipe fitters, electricians, welders, bulldozer drivers, all of
Speaker 1: the things you need to build a high tech plant.
Speaker 1: And if you look at all the jobs that they're
Speaker 1: advertising for, they all are you know, we will pay
Speaker 1: relocation expenses on there. So they've got to find these workers,
Speaker 1: and they're looking all around the country because they're not
Speaker 1: available there in the Columbus area in Ohio. Thirty percent
Speaker 1: of the workers who build the plant are going to
Speaker 1: be in premises that they have to. Lauren, you talk
Speaker 1: to the local unions and they are reaching down into
Speaker 1: middle schools to try and attract apprentices. And why do
Speaker 1: they need those apprentices Publicas at the other end of
Speaker 1: their membership, they have these baby boomer electricians and pipe
Speaker 1: fitters and so on, who have been retiring over the
Speaker 1: last few years, so that is a scramble on on
Speaker 1: the construction side. On the side of Intel, they have
Speaker 1: to create a whole educational infrastructure in order to find
Speaker 1: these workers. There are no semiconductor engineers being trained at
Speaker 1: Ohio State right now. It's not a program that exists
Speaker 1: because a lot of the semiconductor industry, as we've been
Speaker 1: reading about, is in Taiwan, it's in China, it's other places.
Speaker 1: And that's this whole semiconductor war that we've been hearing about.
Speaker 1: And as you say, it's a big priority of the
Speaker 1: Biden administration to bring that back to the US. Right So,
Speaker 1: Intel is having to spend one hundred million dollars fifty
Speaker 1: million dollars of it in the kind of Ohio area
Speaker 1: in the Midwest, just on education and training, and you know,
Speaker 1: that's the semiconductor engineers. So at Ohio State they are
Speaker 1: trying to create a program with Intel that will generate
Speaker 1: those semiconductor engineers. But then there's also the bulk of
Speaker 1: these jobs are actually jobs that you don't need a
Speaker 1: college degree. For seventy twenty three hundred people who will
Speaker 1: work in that factory will be there with an associate's
Speaker 1: degree or some kind of certificate there, and so they're
Speaker 1: working with community college is there. And we spent time
Speaker 1: with Central Ohio Technical College, and what you find there
Speaker 1: is amazing and that they have a program that trains
Speaker 1: people in kind of electrical engineering technology. It's the basics
Speaker 1: of understanding circuit boards and electricity works. And so they've
Speaker 1: only got one hundred and fifty people in that program
Speaker 1: right now, and it's a part time program to your program,
Speaker 1: how many people do they eventually need until needs twenty three, Sean.
Speaker 1: You spoke with John Barry, who's the president of the
Speaker 1: Central Ohio Technical College, this place that is training up
Speaker 1: workers who will eventually go to work for Intel. Here's
Speaker 1: what he had to say. Intel literally being in my
Speaker 1: backyard from that botascical campus, they are nine minutes and
Speaker 1: twenty eight seconds this boom. This is significantly different than
Speaker 1: I think any of us have ever experienced. And where
Speaker 1: we see it continuing to go, it will be transformed.
Speaker 1: Some of our communities are no longer going to be
Speaker 1: what we'd known them to be. He seems pretty optimistic
Speaker 1: about this. He's got to be optimistic, right, It's his
Speaker 1: job to meet the challenge here and so on. But
Speaker 1: at the same time, he knows that he isn't just
Speaker 1: recruiting people to work in a chip plant. He also
Speaker 1: has a big program training up EMTs and nurses and
Speaker 1: radiology technicians and all of these other careers that are
Speaker 1: in demand in central Ohio that are also facing their
Speaker 1: demographic challenges. Is Intel approaching young people in saying go
Speaker 1: to school, yet you're training and we're going to hire you,
Speaker 1: or are they saying you're hired now, we're going to
Speaker 1: send you to school for now? They are relying on
Speaker 1: the institutions to recruit people, right, So they're helping the
Speaker 1: institutions get people into their programs. Where we go eventually
Speaker 1: is unclear, But you know, Intel is working really really
Speaker 1: hard to build this network of educational institutions, not just
Speaker 1: in the Midwest but around the country. They also have
Speaker 1: a big plant out in Arizona to create these workers
Speaker 1: because without those workers, it can't do what it needs
Speaker 1: to do. And so are these classes that you can
Speaker 1: take to get this technical training the sort of thing
Speaker 1: that you would get and you can go anywhere if
Speaker 1: people are competing, or is this very specifically aimed at
Speaker 1: getting you a job at this plant in this state.
Speaker 1: At the technical college level, these courses are pretty general.
Speaker 1: It's understanding how to use AutoCAD, the kind of design tools,
Speaker 1: understanding how circuit boards are built, and so on. Understanding
Speaker 1: the different technical and I guess I want to say mechanical,
Speaker 1: although it's not mechanical, but you know how to operate robots,
Speaker 1: how to operate machinery, and so on. One student at
Speaker 1: the Central Ohio Technical College is Maddox Curless, and he
Speaker 1: talked to us about all the opportunities he has. If
Speaker 1: I look on the internet, you know, look up engineering
Speaker 1: tech roles, there's a plethora of opportunities out there. And
Speaker 1: you know, there's multiple times I've been over to my
Speaker 1: friend's apartments and we'll just sit there for a couple
Speaker 1: hours and we'll just talk what about this job? What
Speaker 1: about this job? You know they got this you know
Speaker 1: it's dangerous work, but they get paid good. I don't know,
Speaker 1: you know, those conversations happen all the time. You know,
Speaker 1: this is it. The Maddox Cross is twenty years old
Speaker 1: and the world is his oyster. Right. He has all
Speaker 1: of these amazing opportunities, and that's wonderful. And thematics croll list.
Speaker 1: But it also gets at a problem for Intel. It's
Speaker 1: not the only game in town. These young people who
Speaker 1: are coming out of technical colleges like Central Ohio Technical
Speaker 1: College with these skills are in huge demand. Intel is
Speaker 1: going to have to fight for every last one of
Speaker 1: these people. Sean, please stay with me. We'll keep talking
Speaker 1: after the break. Sean, Earlier you talked about how Intel
Speaker 1: is having to essentially steal all of these construction workers
Speaker 1: from other US states. Imagine that's not so popular. There's
Speaker 1: a long history of governors trying to poach industries from
Speaker 1: other states. How are they actually doing it? What is
Speaker 1: their pitch to people from other places? Right? So, I
Speaker 1: mean it used to be that the war between states
Speaker 1: was a war for investment, right and factories. Well, now
Speaker 1: it's kind of a war for people. The people wars
Speaker 1: are here and you can see it in Ohio where
Speaker 1: during the pandemic they were putting up billboards in New
Speaker 1: York City in Austin, Texas kind of making fun of
Speaker 1: the local situation. In New York City. It was a
Speaker 1: billboard that when I'm said, work from home, not a
Speaker 1: tiny studio apartment. In Austin the billboard that went up
Speaker 1: was like keep Austin weird, like weirdly high priced of living, right.
Speaker 1: I mean, the whole idea is pitching an alternative lifestyle
Speaker 1: that is a kind of healthy middle class lifestyle with
Speaker 1: space and with opportunities and so on. But if you
Speaker 1: don't attract those people, you're not going to attract the factories.
Speaker 1: And that's where things have really turned around. Ohio was
Speaker 1: a state that in the last couple of years has
Speaker 1: actually lost population and it was one of twenty four
Speaker 1: states where we saw that phenomenon, and that is really
Speaker 1: going to change the balance of the economy in the
Speaker 1: United States. And that is a kind of existential fight
Speaker 1: between states. I imagine New York and Texas, which are
Speaker 1: being raided by Ohio, are not too happy about it.
Speaker 1: How are they essentially fighting back in the people war, right, Well,
Speaker 1: they're fighting back with their own training programs. So up
Speaker 1: near Syracuse, New York State, has a new semiconductor plant
Speaker 1: coming in where they're facing a lot of the same
Speaker 1: problems in terms of developing people in education and so on.
Speaker 1: You can see in Texas clearly they have been attracting
Speaker 1: a lot of people in recent years they are able
Speaker 1: to offer a housing picture that is easier than the
Speaker 1: suburbs of New York. The theme across the country, though,
Speaker 1: is pretty clear. We have seen for a number of
Speaker 1: years now people moving out of the Northeast and industrial
Speaker 1: Midwest and moving south, and that is changing the balance
Speaker 1: in the economy and that's going to be going on
Speaker 1: for some time. But what we're starting to see now
Speaker 1: is states like Ohio fightback kind of clawback some of
Speaker 1: those people. And it's not just state versus state within
Speaker 1: the US, but it's the US competing for talent, especially
Speaker 1: very highly skilled talent, with other nations around the world.
Speaker 1: Absolutely so, one of the great advantages that the United
Speaker 1: States has had for many decades has been its university
Speaker 1: system and its ability to attract foreign students, particularly in
Speaker 1: science programs and so on. Well, the answer is that
Speaker 1: China and Taiwan and South Korea and Japan have all
Speaker 1: developed their own universities and they're able to keep more
Speaker 1: of their students at home now, which means fewer students
Speaker 1: coming over here. And there is a real war for
Speaker 1: talent going on now. The US may be in a
Speaker 1: better position than some other countries. It's population isn't as
Speaker 1: old as Germany's. Per se we actually saw China lose
Speaker 1: population last year for the first time since the nineteen sixties,
Speaker 1: and that is a much more dramatic picture. But this
Speaker 1: battle isn't going away, and it's a battle between nations,
Speaker 1: a battle within nations, and it's going to be a
Speaker 1: feature of the international economy for decades to come. So, Sean,
Speaker 1: we started out with you describing this demographic problem. There
Speaker 1: are simply fewer people working now and because of all
Speaker 1: of the things you described, there are going to be
Speaker 1: fewer people of working age in the future. So people
Speaker 1: and move around from state to state to fill immediate needs,
Speaker 1: but ultimately there won't be enough people to fill the
Speaker 1: jobs to drive the economy. So what are the solutions here?
Speaker 1: This is where it gets difficult, and this is where
Speaker 1: politics intrude, and this is where the political divisions in
Speaker 1: America intrude on the ability to find solutions. The central problem,
Speaker 1: as we said, is not enough people. There were five
Speaker 1: hundred thousand fewer babies born last year than there were
Speaker 1: eighteen years ago. That means that eighteen years from now
Speaker 1: there will be five hundred thousand fewer eighteen year olds
Speaker 1: unless you add to them via immigration, and that is
Speaker 1: the obvious solution, and we see other countries like Canada
Speaker 1: and Australia going very aggressively after skilled migrants to try
Speaker 1: and welcome them there. In Australia, for example, they have
Speaker 1: a program now whereby if you have a nursing or
Speaker 1: an education job, you can get your visa within three days.
Speaker 1: In Canada, the population last year grew at its fastest
Speaker 1: rate since in the nineteen fifties because of immigration, because
Speaker 1: they welcome the immigration, because they recognize this problem. That
Speaker 1: is not happening in the United States right now. There
Speaker 1: is no constructive debate happening on Capitol Hill about immigration
Speaker 1: reform and how you attract more skilled migrants, how you
Speaker 1: retain PhD students in key areas. In other countries they
Speaker 1: given the equivalent of green cards when they graduate. That
Speaker 1: just does not happen in the United States yet kick
Speaker 1: them out. So that is a fundamental problem. The other
Speaker 1: solutions are even harder in some ways, and that is
Speaker 1: delaying access to social security, making people work longer, which
Speaker 1: is politically unpalatable. We've actually seen that in France, where
Speaker 1: they've tried to extend a retirement age, and people have
Speaker 1: taken to the streets. There are some other ways you
Speaker 1: can try and draw more people into the workforce, like
Speaker 1: offering affordable childcare to try and get more women into
Speaker 1: the workforce, and but again that's something that we haven't
Speaker 1: seen much movement on Capitol Hill. The problem America faces
Speaker 1: is it's got this enormous demographic challenge and it's got
Speaker 1: a political situation right now where it can't actually engage
Speaker 1: with the solutions because they are too toxic for the moment.
Speaker 1: The good news is we are starting to see some
Speaker 1: changes in politics. We're starting to see governors in red
Speaker 1: states like Ohio talk about the need for more sensible
Speaker 1: immigration policy. We're starting to see mayors talk about it.
Speaker 1: I was in a place called Hamilton County, Indiana last
Speaker 1: year where a very Republican mayor was telling me that
Speaker 1: he needs more immigrants in town to fill the gap.
Speaker 1: So the conversation may be changing and that may lead
Speaker 1: us to some solutions. Sean, always great talking to you.
Speaker 1: Thanks so much for coming the show. It's always wonderful
Speaker 1: to be here. Thank you when we come back. The
Speaker 1: Hunt for Tomorrow's workers today. So we've heard how Intel
Speaker 1: needs a lot of workers for the plant it's building
Speaker 1: in Ohio, But where will they come from. Gabriella CRUs
Speaker 1: Thompson is in charge of answering that question. She's the
Speaker 1: company's director of University Research Collaboration, and she joins me, Now,
Speaker 1: so Intel is building this very big chip manufacturing plan
Speaker 1: and you need to fill I believe it's three thousand jobs.
Speaker 1: That is correct. Yes, how are you going about doing that?
Speaker 1: That seems like a really big task. We most importantly
Speaker 1: are working on building up the education pipeline that will
Speaker 1: provide new people to our factor in Ohio. Tell me
Speaker 1: about that. How is that going to work? How do
Speaker 1: you reach out to the community to say, hey, we've
Speaker 1: got really good jobs here. Yeah. Well, as we thought
Speaker 1: about how we build a new factory in the United States,
Speaker 1: which we haven't done in decades, the first thing that
Speaker 1: we realized we needed to do was to reach out
Speaker 1: to the higher education community in Ohio. So even before
Speaker 1: the announcement of the selection of the site, we were
Speaker 1: already having conversations with the universities, with the community colleges,
Speaker 1: even with the K through twelve system, just to make
Speaker 1: sure that the education system as a whole is ready
Speaker 1: to welcome us as a new employer in Ohio. What
Speaker 1: did you tell them You went to them and say,
Speaker 1: we're building this big plant. What was your sort of
Speaker 1: pitch to them, Well, that's it, We're building this big plant.
Speaker 1: We acquire this large amount of land, and for the
Speaker 1: first phase of the project, we expect two factories, two
Speaker 1: buildings will become an existence in then the next three
Speaker 1: to five years. And those two buildings that we committed to,
Speaker 1: those two factories that we were committing to build in
Speaker 1: Ohio will need three thousand employees, full time Intel employees. Gabby,
Speaker 1: when you went to the schools and told them a
Speaker 1: few years, we're going to need employees, but really into
Speaker 1: the future, we're going to need employees. What did you
Speaker 1: ask the schools? What did you want of them to
Speaker 1: prepare their students to potentially become Intel employees. We typically
Speaker 1: discussed us with educators in two cents, we need technical
Speaker 1: skills education in engineering. Most of the engineering disciplines. For example,
Speaker 1: we need electrical engineers, we need chemical engineers, we need
Speaker 1: mechanical engineers. We need even a few computer scientists. We
Speaker 1: need materials engineers. So it's almost the entire breath of
Speaker 1: education in the engineering disciplines. But we also need two
Speaker 1: year associate degrees graduates because most of the people that
Speaker 1: we're going to hire are going to be technicians that
Speaker 1: are in the production floor, and we need them to
Speaker 1: have either two year associates degrees or equivalent experience from
Speaker 1: an existing industry, and we need to give them skills
Speaker 1: so that they can transition into semiconductors. They can transition
Speaker 1: from a factory, a more traditional manufacturing place that exists
Speaker 1: in Ohio today, to working in a clean room in
Speaker 1: a fab creating silicon chips, which is a very advanced
Speaker 1: type of manufacturing. Are you providing resources or money to
Speaker 1: schools to train these students to do this kind of work.
Speaker 1: That is definitely what we decided at the very beginning
Speaker 1: of this program that we needed to do the big
Speaker 1: scheme of things and the long term. We committed to
Speaker 1: invest at least fifty million dollars in Ohio for education.
Speaker 1: So instead of investing the entire fifty million right away,
Speaker 1: we know this as a long term activity, we are
Speaker 1: dividing that fifty million in three phases. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: when you say education, fifty million dollars is a lot
Speaker 1: of money, but how is it divided what does actually
Speaker 1: go for? So we encourage the institutions to work together
Speaker 1: to leverage other programs that exist federal government grants, local
Speaker 1: state government grants, and that they put together groups to
Speaker 1: achieve the different things that we want to achieve. First,
Speaker 1: we are funding opportunities for experiential opportunities for students hands
Speaker 1: on lab activities. So we wanted the institutions to propose
Speaker 1: to us what kind of on hands lab, maybe lab
Speaker 1: equitment and maybe lab experiences they could provide two students.
Speaker 1: We also are providing funding for creating or upgrading curriculum.
Speaker 1: We know that Ohio institutions have not been focused on
Speaker 1: semiconductor manufacturing per se because that didn't exist in Ohio.
Speaker 1: So building up a curriculum that supports the type of
Speaker 1: education we need is part of the grants. The other
Speaker 1: thing that we want to make sure is that we
Speaker 1: provide funding for educating the educators. Right, many professors that
Speaker 1: are in the institutions today they were not delivering content
Speaker 1: on semiconductor manufacturing. So we are providing some financial incentives
Speaker 1: for the professors educations themselves. The institutions came together beautifully.
Speaker 1: I tell you it is so exciting to see. We
Speaker 1: announced in March March seventeenth last year, these grants we're
Speaker 1: going to be released, and I can tell you almost
Speaker 1: a year later, it's so beautiful to see eighty institutions
Speaker 1: working together, Gabby. Earlier, we heard from a young man
Speaker 1: studying at Central Ohio Technical College. That's one of the
Speaker 1: schools where you aim to find employees, and he said
Speaker 1: he and his classmates have many choices of employers, and
Speaker 1: that means, of course that you're going to have competition
Speaker 1: for his talents. What's your pitch to him? Our pitch
Speaker 1: is that we have great benefits, We are a really
Speaker 1: good employer, and it's absolutely fun place to work at Intel.
Speaker 1: The salary of today, the salary that we're going to
Speaker 1: be given to the average employee that we're going to hire,
Speaker 1: is a pretty good salary. One hundred and thirty five
Speaker 1: thousand dollars a year. And that's a starting salary for
Speaker 1: somebody doing what sort of work. That is an average
Speaker 1: starting salary for technicians in our production line. And what
Speaker 1: is a technician? What does a technician do? So technicians
Speaker 1: are the people in charge of making sure that the
Speaker 1: production moves along without any issues and when there are issues,
Speaker 1: because there's production plants always have issues. That they are
Speaker 1: the first line of defense and the first line of
Speaker 1: problems solving in the production. If you see, and there's
Speaker 1: many videos out there of how this production lines are,
Speaker 1: they're mostly fully automated. The materials run between machines in
Speaker 1: an automated fashion, so people are not pushing or doing
Speaker 1: hard work necessarily pushing the material, but people, the technicians
Speaker 1: are fixing the tools that fall out of specifications, if
Speaker 1: you will. So that's the main job of technicians, and
Speaker 1: it's about three quarters of the workforce that we're going
Speaker 1: to be hiring in Ohio. So three quarters of the
Speaker 1: people of the three thousand we talked about will have
Speaker 1: a starting salary of one hundred and thirty five thousand dollars,
Speaker 1: that is correct. And then great benefits, right, great medical benefits,
Speaker 1: great childcare benefits. There's also tuition benefits. So you come
Speaker 1: to ININTIL with a two year degree, we have a
Speaker 1: tuition imbursement program so that you can continue studying if
Speaker 1: you want to become an engineer or if you want
Speaker 1: to learn more about management and become a manager. We've
Speaker 1: been talking a lot about how Intel is trying to
Speaker 1: create this pipeline in Ohio for this plan. But if
Speaker 1: we're just looking at a numbers game, three thousand is
Speaker 1: a lot for that community to create even over time.
Speaker 1: Do you anticipate that you're going to have to lure
Speaker 1: in a lot of employees from other states? We think
Speaker 1: we will need to move, you help people move from
Speaker 1: other states, But I don't think it's going to be
Speaker 1: a lot of people. I think the majority of people
Speaker 1: are going to come from the institutions in Ohio or
Speaker 1: from experienced people that are already in the workforce in Ohio.
Speaker 1: And why do I say that? Back to your question
Speaker 1: about the grants that we gave the institutions, the institutions
Speaker 1: that we provided the funds and that are working and
Speaker 1: then building this workforce pipeline, they are estimating that they
Speaker 1: are going to be educating about nine and people. So
Speaker 1: simple math tells you that we are educating enough people
Speaker 1: for the people that we need to hire in our facilities. However,
Speaker 1: we are very much aware of the needs of our suppliers,
Speaker 1: so not just us Intel as a company, but our
Speaker 1: supply base that all the companies that support our factories.
Speaker 1: How does Intel look at hiring and training today versus say,
Speaker 1: twenty thirty years ago when Intel was building chips in
Speaker 1: the US. Is there a lot that's different. Well, this
Speaker 1: is a very interesting question. Is it different? Yes, there
Speaker 1: are aspects that are very different today than thirty years
Speaker 1: ago or twenty years ago, but there is a fundamental
Speaker 1: similarity which Intel's DNA has always been to work very
Speaker 1: closely with the educators near our operations, our funding executives.
Speaker 1: They we're very close working with University of California at
Speaker 1: Berkeley and Stanford. A lot of the innovation and ideas
Speaker 1: come from working with and talking to academics. That's where
Speaker 1: Until started, you know, more than fifty years ago in
Speaker 1: Silicon Valley, and that's been part of our DNA. So
Speaker 1: twenty years ago or thirty years ago, when we needed
Speaker 1: to hire people, the first place we always go is
Speaker 1: the community colleges and the universities. So in that sense,
Speaker 1: we are using that same playbook in Ohio. However, what
Speaker 1: is different today compared to twenty years ago is that
Speaker 1: we see that there's going to be a huge build
Speaker 1: up of semiconductor manufacturing in the US. Many different companies
Speaker 1: are trying to attract this talent in engineering disciplines. It's
Speaker 1: a broad stroke of all the engineering disciplines, not one
Speaker 1: or two, but basically all. We're also competing for scientists,
Speaker 1: and we realize that we are competing, and we also
Speaker 1: realize that the US needs to produce more scientists, more engineers,
Speaker 1: more technologist. So yes, there is an aspect of competing
Speaker 1: for the person that is graduating today. But there's recognition
Speaker 1: not just at Intel, but at the industry that we
Speaker 1: need to work together to build up that pipeline of
Speaker 1: STEM workers right science and technology and engineering. And we
Speaker 1: need to reach out to high schools and explain to
Speaker 1: high school students what kind of a career you can
Speaker 1: have either being a semiconductor manufacturing person, or being a
Speaker 1: quoder for AI or doing cybersecurity. I mean, all of
Speaker 1: these three topics are major importance to an industry that
Speaker 1: needs to grow in the US, that needs to have
Speaker 1: a very secure footh hall in the US. Gabriella Cruz Thompson,
Speaker 1: thanks so much for talking with me. Thank you thanks
Speaker 1: for listening to us here at the Big Take. It's
Speaker 1: a daily podcast from Bloomberg and iHeartRadio. Shows from my
Speaker 1: Heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast, or wherever
Speaker 1: you listen, and we'd love to hear from you. Email
Speaker 1: us questions or comments to Big Take at bloomberg dot net.
Speaker 1: The supervising producer of The Big Take is Vicky Bergolina.
Speaker 1: Our senior producer is Katherine Fink. Our producers are Michael
Speaker 1: Falerro and Mobarrow. Hilde Garcia is our engineer. Our original
Speaker 1: music was composed by Leo Sidrin. I'm West Kasova. We'll
Speaker 1: be back tomorrow with another Big Take