Semiconductor Higher Technical Skills Academy Wales: Recruitment, Retention & Upskilling

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Wales was once the world's largest producer of premium smokeless coal. The exporting of coal gave birth to the Cardiff and Newport docklands areas upon which inward investors later docked their overseas operations, accessing low-cost labour pools in the region. Following the collapse of the coal mining industry in the 1980s, thousands of people, especially those in the South Wales Valleys became unemployed with poor health and job prospects. In the latest census data, life expectancy remains lowest in Blaenau Gwent, Rhondda Cynon Taf and Neath Port Talbot throughout Wales, and is five years below the UK average. Whilst coal mining put Wales' on the map, its legacy is one of pride and suffering for Welsh people. Today, the unemployment rate in Wales is lower than in England at just 3.3%, its lowest rate in more than 50 years (BBC, 2022). However, the economic inactivity rate in the South Wales Valleys is as high as 26%, compared with 17% in England in the year ending 2022 (Stats Wales, 2022). Current figures estimate demand for 3,000 new jobs in the semiconductor industry in South Wales with KLA announcing 750 jobs at its new site in Newport. Demand cannot be serviced solely with the current supply of graduates; moreover vocational skills requirements are not being met with current qualifications and training initiatives. The industry will need to engage new talent from diverse and underrepresented backgrounds, and specifically the economically inactive talent pool in the South Wales Valleys to address the shortfall. No current initiatives exist within the region to actively align diverse and underrepresented talent to higher technical semiconductor roles. The Semiconductor Higher Technical Skills Academy Wales will seek to define and fill the key higher technical skills gaps in Wales' fast-growing compound semiconductor industry. The Academy will host a suite of short, sharp, flexible and intense upskilling programmes to plug specific technical skills gaps, designed in collaboration with semiconductor employers and CS Connected, delivered in partnership with iungo Solutions and Coleg y Cymoedd (College of the Valleys), and underwritten by Wales' largest awarding organisation, WJEC. This project seeks to transform the low-cost labour market of the coal mining era, into a high-skilled and high-productivity economic engine for Wales. This will be achieved by engaging and upskilling the economically inactive population of the South Wales Valleys for roles in the high-tech semiconductor industry.