Micron To Spend Up To $100 Billion To Build a Computer Chip Factory In New York (cnbc.com) 50
Micron will spend up to $100 billion over at least the next two decades building a new computer chip factory in upstate New York, the state said on Tuesday. CNBC reports: The announcement, first reported by The New York Times, comes after the passage of the CHIPS and Science Act of 2022, a federal law championed by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., that allocates $52 billion to encourage more domestic semiconductor production. Micron CEO Sanjay Mehrotra credited the passage of the law for making the investment possible, according to the Times. [...] When the CHIPS Act became law, it spurred a wave of investment announcements by semiconductor companies, including Micron, which at the time pledged $40 billion through 2030 for U.S. chip manufacturing, saying it would create up to 40,000 domestic jobs. Qualcomm also committed to buying an additional $4.2 billion worth of chips from GlobalFoundries' plant in New York. Intel had said its plans to invest up to $100 billion in chip manufacturing in Ohio relied heavily on the federal legislation.
New York's Democratic governor, Kathy Hochul, also played a role, working to persuade Micron to bring its plant to Clay, a town near Syracuse, the Times reported. The performance-based incentive package from the state is valued at $5.5 billion and is tied to Micron's commitment to create 9,000 new jobs as well as following through on the $100 billion investment. Micron must also meet certain sustainability standards to get the tax credits. According to a press release from Hochul's office, an economic impact study by Regional Economic Models found the project will create an average of nearly 50,000 jobs in New York state per year over the first 31 years of its operation. It also estimated it would generate an additional $16.7 billion in real, inflation-adjusted, economic output for the state.
New York's Democratic governor, Kathy Hochul, also played a role, working to persuade Micron to bring its plant to Clay, a town near Syracuse, the Times reported. The performance-based incentive package from the state is valued at $5.5 billion and is tied to Micron's commitment to create 9,000 new jobs as well as following through on the $100 billion investment. Micron must also meet certain sustainability standards to get the tax credits. According to a press release from Hochul's office, an economic impact study by Regional Economic Models found the project will create an average of nearly 50,000 jobs in New York state per year over the first 31 years of its operation. It also estimated it would generate an additional $16.7 billion in real, inflation-adjusted, economic output for the state.
9,000 new jobs for the Micron plant? (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm honestly curious what kind of pay these jobs would offer? When I think of a chip fab plant, I think of all the R&D that obviously requires people with advanced degrees and skills. But I'm sure the mass production process is much like most factories... A lot of stuff done by industrial robots and machinery where possible, and a lot of basic unskilled factory labor?
More jobs in the country is great, either way. But one of our big problems emerging now is the fact that so many people want that "living wage", meaning earning enough money to support a family on. Traditionally, we had a system where the man was typically the one going out and working a full-time "career job" someplace, which paid enough to support the rest of the family. The wife and/or kid(s) might then take some part-time work or maybe even a full-time entry level job in retail or the service industry. The modern re-think on that says women deserve equal pay and equal work opportunities, and they expect to go into these same higher-paying career type positions. And I think that has served to put downward pressure on wages. It effectively doubles the competition for any of the better paying jobs. And no matter what the colleges and universities want to tell you? America runs on the idea that we've got this large population of people who are fine earning a lot less to do more menial labor.
That's why I'm thinking it's honestly more useful if we can create more of these jobs that demand more formal education and knowledge/skill. We need to have places for people to land after they dump a lot of money into a college education that justify what they paid to learn. And it's clear we're "good" with the number of job openings for the basic stuff like packing boxes for shipping.
Re: 9,000 new jobs for the Micron plant? (Score:2)
It would be more downward pressure on wages if the number of positions didn't change. If you removed all women from the workforce, even jobs paying over, say, $40K/year, there would be a lot of vacant positions.
My wife didn't have a job when we got married. But now she earns about $160K to my $120K. I'm really glad she is in the workforce.
Re: 9,000 new jobs for the Micron plant? (Score:2)
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Re: 9,000 new jobs for the Micron plant? (Score:3)
None as far as I know. She does vendor management stuff.
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Re: 9,000 new jobs for the Micron plant? (Score:2)
Gotta have humor in life, or you're never going to make it (;
Her company is in an expensive major metropolitan area. They couldn't find anyone suitable locally, so they opened it up to 100% remote work. We live in a much cheaper area than her company is located in...and it is also in a place I would never consent to live either.
Re: 9,000 new jobs for the Micron plant? (Score:4, Interesting)
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Usually these types of announcements are not just counting permanent positions at the plant, they're including shorter term construction and setup. Sometimes they inflate their claims by including jobs in supporting industries (retail, service, etc.) I haven't looked closely at this example to see what their breakdown is.
This. They're counting potential jobs like making sandwiched for the few people they directly employ. It's not like the politicians, marketers and execs who make these numbers up are pathological liars or anything.
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The modern re-think on that says women deserve equal pay and equal work opportunities
Yes. Everyone deserves equal opportunity and equal pay. No reasonable person would disagree with that.
Unfortunately, there are a lot of people who want the pay and opportunity without doing any of the work to earn it.
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"Unfortunately, there are a lot of people who want the pay and opportunity without doing any of the work to earn it."
There are many more people who've been working harder & longer than ever without seeing their earnings, benefits or job security reflect that.
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The modern re-think on that says women deserve equal pay and equal work opportunities, and they expect to go into these same higher-paying career type positions. And I think that has served to put downward pressure on wages. It effectively doubles the competition for any of the better paying jobs.
That could be a good thing, actually, if the population rate is going down, a known problem in the advanced industrialized countries of the world, Japan being a notable example. So, instead of hiring more labor from countries with different cultural values, just put more of the people already here (the "house" wives) to work.
"living wage" (Score:2)
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Just wanted to chime in that I agree 100% with everything you said there, rcb1974!
My original post just comes from accepting all of this as our current reality we're stuck living in, as opposed to trying to point blame (which govt. well deserves), and asking for an honest assessment of how much a new chip fab plant really contributes to America's job situation.
Re: 9,000 new jobs for the Micron plant? (Score:2)
Itâ(TM)s 9000 jobs over its lifetime and estimated ancillary businesses. So the roughly 200 temporary jobs for its construction, the 200 people in government overseeing the bribes, 100 regulators and inspectors, and then 100 people that work in the factory. The rest of the jobs are what they expect the local Starbucks will employ to support the factory.
This will just be like the IBM and Intel fab in the same region, continuously asking for handouts and then you get a job offer for $12/h for these highl
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I'm honestly curious what kind of pay these jobs would offer? When I think of a chip fab plant, I think of all the R&D that obviously requires people with advanced degrees and skills. But I'm sure the mass production process is much like most factories... A lot of stuff done by industrial robots and machinery where possible, and a lot of basic unskilled factory labor?
More jobs in the country is great, either way. But one of our big problems emerging now is the fact that so many people want that "living wage", meaning earning enough money to support a family on. Traditionally, we had a system where the man was typically the one going out and working a full-time "career job" someplace, which paid enough to support the rest of the family. The wife and/or kid(s) might then take some part-time work or maybe even a full-time entry level job in retail or the service industry. The modern re-think on that says women deserve equal pay and equal work opportunities, and they expect to go into these same higher-paying career type positions. And I think that has served to put downward pressure on wages. It effectively doubles the competition for any of the better paying jobs. And no matter what the colleges and universities want to tell you? America runs on the idea that we've got this large population of people who are fine earning a lot less to do more menial labor.
That's why I'm thinking it's honestly more useful if we can create more of these jobs that demand more formal education and knowledge/skill. We need to have places for people to land after they dump a lot of money into a college education that justify what they paid to learn. And it's clear we're "good" with the number of job openings for the basic stuff like packing boxes for shipping.
The thing about chip fabs is that they require a large amount of skilled labour. Well educated workers capable of meeting strict tolerances. Most jobs will have a minimum of a western high school diploma and 1 year of specialised tertiary study, if not a full degree.
That's why they're built in places like Japan, Taiwan and the US, not China and India. Even some places in the west are terrible for educated labour, which is why Boeing is having all kinds of issues at it's Mobile facility (whilst Alabama is
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I believe those are the jobs to construct the plant, not the eventual employee count.
$100B? (Score:2)
Micron averages ~$25B in yearly revenue and ~$5B in yearly profit over the past few years. Is the $100B just a made up figure for politicians or are they actually going to spend $100B on a fab (or group of fabs)?
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Reading a little more, it sounds like the number is more like $10-20B. Maybe the $100B comes from adding up all the costs to operate the plant over the next 20 years.
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Number of jobs is sus (Score:2)
"the project will create an average of nearly 50,000 jobs in New York state per year over the first 31 years of its operation."
Does this say that because of this project, 31 years from now, there will be 1.5 million more jobs in the area than there would be otherwise? Or is there some hidden implication in the phrasing?
Re: Number of jobs is sus (Score:2)
Do you double your jobs every year? No, itâ(TM)s 50k jobs in the region for the next 30 years.
Because you know, we will produce the same semiconductors 30 years from now.
Itâ(TM)s a lot of fluff, promises and NYS doesnâ(TM)t have a track record of being friendly to business in the long term. I think Foxconn in Wisconsin may outperform this one.
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Do you double your jobs every year? No, itÃ(TM)s 50k jobs in the region for the next 30 years.
No. The original quote was "...create .. nearly 50,000 jobs ...per year". That means hiring 50K people every year.
I also get grumpy when "journalists" do not understand the difference between power and energy. If they failed high school physics, why can't they ask their coworker that did not fail physics?
Re:Crony capitalism (Score:5, Interesting)
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So you all like it when the government effectively creates barriers to entry and chooses winners and losers?
It always has and it always will to some extent. Having monopoly use of force kind of predicates that it must to some degree. Food safety regulations put companies with suspect practices out of business, they "chose" effectively. You can find examples throughout history.
If one "likes" it or not usually stems from whether they were the winner or the loser.
If New Yorkers don't approve of this expenditure by the state they have the opportunity to vote out the people who did it, pretty soon in fact.
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It is corruption. They get in the way for "personal growth". When it hampers too much, get back out of the way with special exemptions from the emperor.
This isn't a wise move. It is an acknowledgement their regulations and other burdens are too costly.
"Sustainable blah blah", "environmental studies before building blab blab".
"Here's the deal. You knock many billions off our costs, and we will do all that bullshit you want. We will even butter you up. Also, our competitors, who don't get those breaks a
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Their competitors are getting similar deals but in different states.
Really in te US at least you would have to pass some type of qmendment to stop this behavior and would really cede the authority over to the federal government, this is a designed part of the whole "states are laboratories" type of thinking.
NC did it with Apple, Arizona does it with Intel, Texas did it with Tesla, goes on and on. Saying NY doing this is corruption is just asking them to kneecap themselves for "principles" which they have n
Re: Crony capitalism (Score:2)
This is Slashdot; when Republicans do it itâ(TM)s bad, if Democrats do it itâ(TM)s good.
I say all of it is bad, it destroys other local businesses.
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Umm, TX was doing exactly the same thing. My suspicion is Micron got more from NY than TX was going to offer, and NY has better water and power available, both crucial to a fab. Samsung took a loss in the big freeze when the power was turned off and maybe Micron took notes. Water is also going to get alot more dear in central TX as growth balloons. I don't like it, but until the fed says to states/local's that you cannot offer tax breaks to corps, the bidding orgies will continue. Who doesn't remember the Amazon bidding war?
I suspect reliable power and water had a lot more to do with it. If a fab needs to shut down for a few days, that's loads and loads of revenue lost and the time to restart the plant.
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Bribing companies with tax breaks is pretty common now, and this might wind up being a bad deal for New York.
It probably won't be as stupid as the deal Wisconsin did a few years ago with Foxconn however. They must still be laughing at how stupid Scott Walker is.
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Slow growth is good. Fast growth also leads to fast declines and you get a lot of ghost towns, as when the company leaves it gives the town left with an oversized infrastructure that will be a huge tax burden to those who remain.
But a slow growth, allowed for a more robust economy spanning different sectors so if a company does leave there are others that will keep the community going.
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I'm pretty sure the poster I replied to is trying to make some sort of political statement.
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Housing costs (Score:2)
I've looked into this some, and come to the conclusion of "just build housing!" is really the best answer. This is a bit off the cuff, so not perfectly phrased.
Basically, Don't put extra requirements on developers if you don't have to. For example, requiring some proportion of housing be "affordable" when developers build more housing just pushes the rest of the housing more up market to make up for the costs of building the extra housing that needs to be subsidized by customers paying full price. It's a
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"Affordable Housing" has as a corollary "Lower Property Values". So homeowners who are sitting pretty howl in protest and vote in massive waves of NIMBYism to protect their precious property values, while non-homeowners are shut out of the market and getting poorer. (This is the situation in Canada, at least, where house prices are insanely high.)
You're right in that the only way to make affordable housing is to build more and to remove onerous zoning restrictions. But good luck with that. Try to chan
A bit off the mark? (Score:2)
Actually, given "NY", while I darn well know that NY is not just NYC (my family is from upstate), I was thinking of areas that are already denser than single family dwellings.
Actual housing projects in areas where condos are going in, not single homes. Plenty of people want condos, but cities tend to require a percentage of the places in it be artificially cheap, IE "affordable".
Without said requirements, the properties would be even more valuable.
Though yeah, onerous zoning requirements is indeed a proble
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I personally shuttered my landlord business...
And nothing of value was lost. Unless you dynamited the properties so that no-one could ever live there ever again.
Otherwise, you just failed.
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Re: Crony capitalism (Score:2)
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If NY didn't an other state would. I am not saying it is right, but that is how the game is played today. A company will bid for the best deal they can get, and often get the local politicians involved to be as accomodating as they can.
That said, upstate NY is much cheaper cost of living than downstate. And that area is nearby some well known schools, access to stable power, and water. And the biggest weather Hazzard is normally high snowfall, which the area can manage.
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Normally, I agree that governments shouldn't tilt the playing field. However, in this specific case, I think having semiconductor fabs in Western democracies is a security issue. Russia has proven it's unreliable. We shouldn't rely on China because China is basically an enemy of the West and of democracy. And relying on Taiwan is dangerous as long as China is threatening it.