Quick question before the data. What share of Gen Z says it actually wants a fast-paced career with rapid promotions? Take a guess before you keep reading.
25 percent. One in four. That comes from Deloitte’s 2026 Gen Z and Millennial Survey, 22,595 respondents across 44 countries, 14,384 of them Gen Z. The larger group, 44 percent, says it wants steady, gradual growth. Another 21 percent are fine with lateral moves or even stepping back for a while. Only 6 percent name reaching a leadership position as their primary career goal, though 76 percent would take a senior role eventually. When asked what makes leadership unattractive, half said stress and burnout and half said too much responsibility. I am a Deloitte alum, so I will admit a small bias toward the survey. I know the folks who run that shop at Deloitte. Sharp team. I am also the guy who has written “fast track” into program marketing copy. More than once. WHOA, I know.
The timing of this is almost too clean
On October 2, the first Friday in October, thousands of manufacturers across the country will open their doors for MFG Day. Students, parents, teachers, and community leaders will walk a floor, see the robots, meet the technicians, and get the pitch.
It is one of the best things our field does. I mean that. Nothing beats standing twenty feet from a tool and watching a 23-year-old run it. I remember walking through an advanced automation and robotics manufacturing floor the first time and being stunned by the tech.
But we are about to deliver that pitch in a vocabulary our own audience research says is aimed at a quarter of the room. Climb. Fast track. Accelerate. Leadership pipeline. Unlimited growth. Type “fast track semiconductor career” into a search bar and you will find programs using that exact phrase at universities, alliances, and colleges in a half dozen states. Good programs, run by serious people. The language is just borrowed, and most of us borrowed it from tech recruiting.
Now describe the job honestly
Here is a semiconductor technician career, written plainly:
You train in a cohort, often in under a year. You start on a defined shift with a published pay scale. You move sideways between equipment, process, and facilities roles as you pick up systems. Your employer pays for the next certification. Your supervisor was doing your job four or five years ago, and everybody in the bay knows exactly what it took her to get there.
Read that again next to the Deloitte numbers. Steady growth. Lateral movement. Legible progression. Low chaos. Somebody senior who is not a mystery. That is not a consolation prize career. That is the thing 44 percent of Gen Z told a global survey they were shopping for, and we are describing it with words built for the 25 percent who want to be a director by 28.
This is not a pipeline problem. It is a positioning problem. And positioning is something economic developers, chambers, and workforce boards are really good at. We do it for companies every single day. Kudos to my former EY colleague and nationally respected thought leader Marcie Merriman who first introduced me to the essential nature of understanding different generations in the context of the future of work. It’s not enough to build the pathways, we must know how to compel action for each “tribe”. Not an easy task.
They already voted, we just read the ballot wrong
If you think this is a soft argument about vibes, look at enrollment. The National Student Clearinghouse Research Center reported in May 2025 that vocational-focused public two-year colleges grew nearly 20 percent since spring 2020, reaching 871,000 students. Over that same stretch, high-transfer public two-years grew 1.6 percent this spring and mixed-transfer grew 5.6 percent, both still sitting below where they were in spring 2020.
Young people have been moving toward hands-on, credential-first, employer-connected training for five straight years. That is not a perception crisis. That is a demand signal we have been describing as a perception crisis.
And the jobs are waiting. The Semiconductor Industry Association’s “Chipping Away” analysis projected roughly 67,000 unfilled semiconductor jobs nationally by 2030 at current degree completion rates, and 39 percent of those are technician roles that need a certificate or a two-year degree. Deloitte and The Manufacturing Institute put the broader number at 3.8 million manufacturing jobs needed by 2033, with as many as 1.9 million potentially going unfilled. Sixty-five percent of the manufacturers they surveyed said attracting and retaining talent is their primary business challenge. Sixty-five percent say it is their number one problem, and the fix might partly be a rewrite. Bear with me here.
Texas is not waiting around
The Governor’s Texas Semiconductor Strategic Plan counts over 51,000 Texans already working in semiconductors and electronics. Here in Central Texas, a report commissioned by Workforce Solutions Rural Capital Area with ARMA, Workforce Solutions Capital Area, and Opportunity Austin projects upwards of 33,000 new semiconductor and advanced manufacturing jobs across twelve counties by 2030.
In January, the state put a $3.5 million Texas Semiconductor Innovation Fund grant into Texas State Technical College’s Williamson County campus in Hutto for an Accelerated Semiconductor Technician Training Program. Equipment technicians, process technicians, and gas control system specialists. Ten weeks long.
Ten weeks. That is arguably the most honest product description in the whole sector, and it says steady and structured out loud without trying to sound like a startup.
Closer to home, the Austin Infrastructure Academy, a partnership of Workforce Solutions Capital Area, Austin Community College, the City, and a long list of community partners, reported connecting over 1,500 residents to jobs and enrolling over 1,000 in training in its first year, with participants who landed employment seeing average annual earnings increases of roughly $18,500. Credit where it is due. That is the model working.
Three things I would change before October 2
Rewrite the verbs. Swap climb for build. Swap fast track for cohort. Swap unlimited growth for a published pay scale with the numbers actually on it. This costs nothing and you can do it this month.
Publish the ladder, including the sideways steps. Show the move from equipment to process to facilities as a feature, not an exit. Deloitte’s manufacturing work found that flexible scheduling, including shift swapping and split shifts, is one of the levers on retention for younger workers. If you have it, put it in the ad. If you do not have it, work to build it. Not all career progression is vertical.
Talk to the adults. Half of MFG Day’s power is that parents and teachers walk the floor too. This is no longer your grandpa’s manufacturing floor, trust me. The Manufacturing Institute built the day that way on purpose. Use it!
I will be in College Station on October 22 and 23 for the Texas Semiconductor Summit, where Day 2 is all about workforce, talent, and ecosystem development. This is the argument I plan to bring, and I ask you to consider this: If Gen Z is telling every major survey that it wants steady, structured, legible careers, and advanced manufacturing is one of the few sectors that genuinely offers that, why are we still selling speed?
I would really like to hear your thoughts, lets connect!
Edgar Padilla is the Founder & Chief Strategist at Padilla Futures Group, a workforce, education, and economic development advisory firm. He is currently embedded with the City of Austin Economic Development Department as a FUSE Executive Fellow, focused on the advanced manufacturing and semiconductor industry and workforce. He is a former senior executive in technical higher education, publicly-elected school board trustee, Deloitte and EY alum, and experienced non-profit, EDO, and education board member. Views are his own.
Originally published on LinkedIn.