NIST Surpassed Hiring Goals for CHIPS But Did Not Develop a Comprehensive Workforce Plan

Over the past several decades, the United States has lost ground as a leader in semiconductor chip manufacturing and research. Congress passed the CHIPS Act of 2022 to help rebuild the domestic semiconductor industry and strengthen semiconductor research and development. The CHIPS Act provides $50 billion to the Department of Commerce to support research and development, innovation, and manufacturing related to semiconductors. In addition, the CHIPS Act authorizes the Secretary of Commerce to issue up to $75 billion in direct loans and loan guarantees. The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is overseeing the Department’s CHIPS program. NIST established two offices to implement the CHIPS program: the CHIPS Program Office (CPO), responsible for implementing the semiconductor incentives program, and the CHIPS Research and Development Office (CRDO), responsible for programs undertaking research and development activities. The initial CHIPS leadership team was announced in September 2022 and undertook hiring for the two offices. The objective of our evaluation was to assess NIST’s progress in meeting workforce hiring milestones for CPO and CRDO. We found that NIST surpassed its hiring goals for CPO and CRDO but did not develop a comprehensive workforce plan to meet its human capital needs. Without a comprehensive workforce plan, CPO and CRDO lack assurance that they have adequately aligned their resources to fulfill their mission or identified current and future staffing opportunities and constraints. Workforce planning ensures that agencies have the right people with the right skills to accomplish the mission and enables agencies to meet current and future organizational goals and objectives. We made two recommendations to help NIST meet workforce needs for both the CHIPS program and future hiring efforts. NIST concurred with both recommendations.