Search

The semiconductor industry's workforce is expected to grow from approximately 345,000 jobs today to about 460,000 by the decade's end, and of these new jobs, roughly 67,000 are at risk of being unfilled, according to a report from the Semiconductor Industry Association and Oxford Economics (SIA-OE report).

The SIA-OE report makes three recommendations for addressing this shortage:

The U.S. Economic Development Administration’s (EDA’s) annual Build to Scale (B2S) program (previously Regional Innovation Strategies) completed its tenth award cycle this year, with over $270 million in grants across 437 awards since inception in Fiscal Year (FY) 2014. FY 2023 was the largest award cycle, totaling $53 million in federal awards across the Venture and Capital Challenges.

To mark the anniversary of its executive order on supply chains, the White House released a fact sheet this morning outlining past and future actions to strengthen American competitiveness. The release includes several initiatives that have not been discussed widely before, including that: the Export-Import Bank of the U.S.

A new $113 million grant program intended to strengthen and modernize the Registered Apprenticeship Program (RAP) will designate up to $50 million for equity partnerships and pre-apprenticeship activities. The U.S. Department of Labor announced the new grant program to enable more workers to earn while they learn and find reliable pathways to the middle class. Using a coordinated investment strategy, the Apprenticeship Building America grant program will bring the RAP model to new sectors and industries.

The Kentucky and Mississippi gubernatorial elections were held on Nov. 7, with both incumbents, Andy Beshear (D) and Tate Reeves (R), winning re-election. Legislative elections were also held in Mississippi (where simple majorities were guaranteed for Republicans in both chambers), New Jersey, and Virginia.

The Economic Development Administration (EDA) announced 60 organizations receiving $53 million from the Build to Scale program today. This is the program’s 10th and largest award cycle, following years of consistent appropriations growth from Congress.

Incorporating systems thinking into economic development planning could lead to better solutions to potential and pressing problems, says a Quarterly Research Brief from the National Economic Research and Resilience Center (NERRC). The paper emphasizes that systems, or integrated planning, is essential when writing a Comprehensive Economic Development Strategy (CEDS).

While there has been increasing public questioning of the value of a college degree, statistics on net worth by educational attainment paint a clear picture. In 2022, the median net worth of those without a high school diploma was approximately $38,000, while those with a college education sat at around $464,000. When looking at averages instead, the difference becomes even more pronounced, with non-high school graduates averaging a net worth of approximately $176,000 compared to college graduates’ $1.92 million.

Startup Genome and the Global Entrepreneurship Network recently released a new report offering a fresh perspective on what it takes for a startup to scale. The report draws on an eleven-year study involving 100,000 startups to provide a nuanced look at the factors contributing to startup scalability, offering actionable insights that underscore the importance of networks for entrepreneur support organizations, entrepreneurs, and policymakers. 

Loyalty to alma maters matters financially beyond March Madness™ and college sports betting, it turns out — to such a degree that policy makers, venture development organizations and university seed funds hoping to attract equity investments for local innovation startups should pay considerable attention to the educational attainment section of founders’ LinkedIn profiles or resumes.

Although it led the global digital revolution, the United States is faltering now when it comes to digital skills possessed by the workforce. That is one of the findings of a recent report from the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF), which goes on to say that such developments bode poorly for long-term U.S. competitiveness if such trends aren’t reversed.

This week, Congress reached an agreement on the FY 2022 defense authorization bill (i.e. “NDAA”). The legislation includes support for expanding the Defense Innovation Unit’s (DIU) reach, research at minority-serving institutions, and commercialization pilots, as well as a $7 billion increase in research funding. While the NDAA does not provide appropriations, the bill is a strong signal for where the FY 2022 appropriations are likely to land.

The Biden Administration issued an executive order earlier this week that provides guidance on the safe, secure, and trustworthy development and use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in the U.S. The EO includes guidance for agencies to work to provide new opportunities for small businesses and entrepreneurs in AI and other directives.

Despite a $4.1 trillion increase in annual output since 1987, manufacturing industries in the United States have been declining in both their labor productivity and share of output. The Bureau of Labor Statistics’ labor productivity (output per hour) index, tied to 2012 values, for manufacturing industries has dropped by nearly five points since its all-time high of over 101 in Q2 2013.

Not all publicly traded companies use savings from tax cuts the same way, NBER researchers James Cloyne, Ezgi Kurt, and Paolo Surico report in “Who gains from Corporate Tax Cuts?  While changes in marginal tax rates and investment tax credits (ITC) can have significant effects on the behavior of publicly traded C-corporations, manufacturers and goods producers are much more likely to recirculate the savings into additional capital expenditure and employment than firms in the service sector.  Publicly traded service sector companies typically use the proceeds from a tax cut to incr

By April of 2023, state legislatures had filed 99 anti-ESG bills, according to Reuters. Many of these bills are motivated by the perception that investors who prioritize environmental, social, and governance (ESG) compliance by companies in which they are investing are imposing their political beliefs on others.

Three states are holding gubernatorial elections this fall, with voters in one of those states (Louisiana) having already chosen a new governor to replace a term-limited incumbent. In the remaining states, Kentucky and Mississippi, elections will be held next week (Nov. 7), with the incumbents facing tough opponents in their reelection bids.

Last week, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida’s advisory panel called for an $88 billion university fund to establish the nation as a center of science and technology and distribute wealth to the wider public.

Manufacturing in the U.S. accounts for 90% of private-sector R&D, employs 80% of the nation’s engineers, and contributes trillions to the economy—according to Deloitte—with every dollar spent in manufacturing leading to an additional $1.81 added to the economy. However, despite its key importance, the U.S.

As the U.S. does not have a “skilled worker” visa like many other countries, the H-1B program is one of the only accessible ways for domestic employers to hire foreign, nonimmigrant labor in specialty occupations. The current statutory limit on new H-1B visas is 65,000 per fiscal year, with an additional 20,000 available for foreign individuals who have graduated with a master’s or doctoral degree from an institution of higher education within the U.S.

The CHIPS and Science Act (Act) established guardrails to prevent funding recipients from using the money to support the development of semiconductor manufacturing and technology in foreign countries of concern, including North Korea, China, Russia, and Iran. On September 25, 2023, the CHIPS Program Office CPO published the final rules for preventing improper use of CHIPS Act funding.

A proposed Department of Homeland Security (DHS) rule could herald significant changes to the H-1B specialty occupation worker program.

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) announced last week that it is adopting modified criteria in its grant review process beginning on January 25, 2024. The new system will continue to focus on the scientific merit of proposals (i.e., importance, rigor, and feasibility), while de-emphasizing criteria that may introduce bias into the review.

New York City and the state of Illinois have both made moves recently to shift more of their economies to clean energy.