Inside Micron’s effort to recruit more women to construction jobs and fill a growing need

About 1 in 10 Americans who work in construction are women, according to a report from Labor Finders. Boise’s Micron wants to change that. And the federal government is taking the lead.

The U.S. Department of Commerce announced in May the creation of the CHIPS Women in Construction Framework, an initiative that aims to double the number of women working in construction over the next decade, an ambitious but not entirely improbable goal.

“Women make up nearly half of America’s workforce, yet remain vastly underrepresented in industries like construction, which needs more skilled workers to fill these high-paying jobs,” Acting Secretary of Labor Julie Su said in a news release.

Micron has committed, voluntarily, to the framework — to collaborating with contractors, trade unions and others to increase the participation of women and economically disadvantaged people in construction. So has Intel.

After all, the companies need a significant amount of construction labor to fulfill their plans to shore up domestic semiconductor manufacturing over the next decade.

‘One untapped resource is women’

The framework to recruit more women was announced about a week after the Biden administration revealed Micron would get $6.1 billion in subsidies to help pay for its chip-making plants in Boise and New York state. The new fabs, short for semiconductor fabrication, are projected to generate over 9,000 construction jobs between the two projects.

At its peak, Micron anticipates having about 4,500 construction workers at the site of its $15 billion fab in Southeast Boise, according to Heather Baldwin, vice president of procurement at Micron.

Micron is Idaho’s largest for-profit employer, with more than 5,000 employees, according to the Idaho Department of Labor. The company has multiple fabs and related operations overseas. Micron says it employs 44,000 people worldwide.

In fact, the company expects to have so many workers that it plans to add a cafeteria.

“If you flew over on an airplane and saw the site lately, you’d see it’s a beehive of activity out there,” Baldwin told the Idaho Statesman in a Zoom call. “We need more people going into the building trades and working in the construction industry in order to support all that growth. And one untapped resource is women.”

Micron broke ground on the fab at its headquarters campus in late 2022. Wayne Hammon, CEO of the Idaho Associated General Contractors, previously told the Statesman that hundreds of workers assigned to projects in Arizona, Nevada and elsewhere would move to Idaho to work on the project. Still, industry experts anticipate a shortfall. Big projects in the Treasure Valley like Micron’s expansion have tied up such a large percentage of the state’s construction and trade workers that developers say the squeeze could hinder other projects, like new apartment complexes and commercial buildings in downtown Boise.

Micron aims to ease barriers to entry

In order to encourage more women to join the male-dominated workforce, Micron wants to break down traditional barriers to entry.

“Some of the things we’re going to work on with the community, the CHIPS program office, contractors and others in the industry is: How do we get more women interested in the building trades? And how do we get them into the workforce to support not just us but Idaho overall?” Baldwin said.

She said the jobs are sometimes unionized, sometimes not, but are well-paying and often come with apprenticeships and other training. She deferred a question about how much construction workers at Micron’s site might earn to the contractors. But Idaho Department of Labor economist Jan Roeser previously told the Statesman that construction workers in Idaho saw among the largest hourly wage gains in 2023.

That hasn’t eased the worker shortage, though.

“A lot of individuals left the construction industry (during the pandemic) and got into something else,” Roeser said. “And a lot of young people aren’t thinking about construction. They’re thinking about health care, because there’s a lot of information out there about the health care industry being recession-proof. There’s more of a seasonality to construction.”

Baldwin said that while some construction work is temporary, like for a 10- or 12-month period, other jobs can last years. And because constructing a fab is a bit unique, in that it’s done in various phases and then requires ongoing maintenance, there are a pool of trade jobs that become semi-permanent, she said. As the technology evolves, equipment gets moved around or sold and new pieces are installed. It involves electricians, pipelayers and many other skilled workers.

Working toward child care solutions

Part of Micron’s expansion in Boise includes a child care center, which the company broke ground on about a year ago. Micron said it would help address barriers to workforce entry and ease the transition for employees, especially mothers.

But the child care center is only for Micron employees, Baldwin said, and would not be accessible to the construction workers at the site of its fab.

“Child care is a barrier for a lot of parents,” Baldwin said. “We’re working with the state, community organizations, contractors and the unions to figure out if there’s women who want to enter apprenticeships, and if the union doesn’t already offer child care — is there something we can figure out to help them?”

‘A lot of different angles’ to recruiting more women

Baldwin said there’s discussions happening about what else Micron can do to ease barriers and recruit more women and economically disadvantaged people into construction.

Baldwin mentioned establishing networking or leadership groups for women, and creating workplaces where women can feel safe. The framework asks companies to commit to maintaining healthy, safe and respectful workplaces that prevent and address harassment, discrimination, retaliation and violence through workplace training, policy and practice.

And there’s other things like making sure there’s female restrooms on job sites and having hard hats and harnesses that fit everyone.

Baldwin added that there’s a misconception and fear that construction involves hard labor all the time. She said many trade jobs aren’t like that.

While only about 10% of construction workers in the U.S. are women, many are doing tasks that don’t require physical labor, according to the report from Labor Finders. About 40% of women in the industry hold management and office positions. Only 2% work in production, transportation and moving materials.

“There’s a lot of different angles that we’ll take,” Baldwin said. “We really, really need to increase all types of folks going into the building trades. The work that we’re going to do with women will directly impact other groups in a very positive way. It’s quite exciting to think about the difference we can make.”

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