A new report highlights a worsening national shortage of highly skilled workers that could lead to delays in constructing hundreds of billions of dollars worth of new semiconductor plants across the United States. This shortage may also constrain future chip production capacity unless the industry pools its resources and government funding support continues.

A recent analysis incorporating a McKinsey employer survey found that the shortfall is projected to be most severe in states like Texas, California, Arizona, New York, and Ohio, where numerous new facilities are planned. The report, released on Tuesday, indicates that by 2030, the shortage of highly skilled full-time workers could reach as high as 157,000.

This labor gap threatens to stall major projects, including Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing's (TSM) estimated investment of up to $265 billion in Arizona to build over a dozen chip fabrication and packaging plants. It also jeopardizes Micron Technology's (MU) $100 billion vision for memory chip production in New York and Samsung's logic chip plant in Texas.

Workforce challenges represent the latest hurdle for chipmakers expanding in the US to reverse a decades-long trend of manufacturing capacity shifting to Asia. Furthermore, rising costs for various raw materials like copper, iron, and cement could inflate the construction expenses of these new facilities, which are central to the current economic agenda.

While the chip sector braces for a labor shortage, the explosive growth of artificial intelligence and a corporate race to invest in AI are cited as factors behind job cuts in other industries, including the technology sector. According to data from Challenger, Gray & Christmas, which tracks layoff announcements, AI-related job cuts have reached nearly 102,000 so far this year.