Chris Henderson, President, Semitracks, Inc.

At the start of 2025, there was a lot of excitement around workforce development. This excitement decreased markedly following the US Commerce Department's decision to stop activities through Natcast. Although Natcast is now basically defunct, the National Network for Microelectronics Education (NNME), through the National Science Foundation and the SEMI Foundation appears to still be moving forward.

In the long term, it still remains to be seen how effective these training programs will be, especially given the fact that several of the larger employers of these potential employees have delayed or mothballed expansion plans, as we predicted would happen.

The economy in 2025 held up reasonably well, and will likely hold up through 2026, since this is an election year in the United States, and the party in power will want to see the economy doing well leading into the elections. The main negative factor is the employment outlook.

A number of firms have conducted mass layoffs in recent months, and this could weigh on consumer spending. It is also not clear how much longer the AI-fueled boom in segments of the semiconductor market will last, given the concerns about debt levels and "circular financing" agreements between many of the major players.

We still believe there is a longer-term trend in place to "reshore" some manufacturing, and this should create an environment where the industry should be able to absorb new workers in 2026. More flexibility in training the workforce is still needed to address the vagaries of the market and the industry's response to it.

Semitracks, Inc. is positioned to help with this training need. Internally, we are working on several AI projects to provide more targeted training, answer questions more quickly, and even make our content available in other languages.

We can scale our training as needed, and provide customized solutions for key gaps in talent and workforce personnel. 2026 should again be an interesting year, given the uncertain demand in the electronics industry, so creative solutions may be necessary for workforce development. We stand ready to help.