We’ve heard enough about the ‘Great Resignation,’ which has people quitting their jobs right and left as they search for something better in their careers. Fortunately for Arizona, we now can shift the conversation to the ‘Great Opportunity.’
José Luis Cruz Rivera, president of Northern Arizona University, has homed in on a workforce-development issue that’s challenging his new state. While scores of employers are expanding into Arizona and hiring workers, the state’s level of education attainment, which is the percentage of adults who complete education after high school, trails the national average.
There’s been a lot of talk about inflation these days – groceries are more expensive, gas prices are going up – but not a lot of talk about solutions. Passing commonsense immigration reform would go a long way to help address America’s labor shortage and get a handle on inflation. When businesses have the workers they need, they can meet consumers’ demands and costs go down.
One of the early stops in my career found me working as a principal engineer at Ford Aerospace. Even then, I knew space held the potential for paydays. Little did I realize that the commercial space industry was going to help sustain Arizona’s economy for years to come in Arizona.
Can it get any better than this? As Capitol Hill observers may tell you, it seems to have taken the topics of clean energy and broadband to help build a bridge across the partisan divide that has meant gridlock among Washington lawmakers for some time. The Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill recently signed into law by President Joe Biden and the Build Back Better Act that is still the topic of congressional discussions feature components to give us hope for a reenergized future in America.
If Arizona has more days of sunshine than anywhere else in the nation, wouldn’t it make sense that we should be No. 1 when it comes to the solar industry? That thought has been front and center in my brain lately. And I’m certainly not alone as Congress has wrestled with the Build Back Better Act, which includes clean electricity policies that would only cost a fraction of the plan’s price tag.
TSMC is the latest chapter in Arizona’s ascent to become the place for new semiconductor investments. Across the Valley in Chandler, Intel — whose first Arizona manufacturing facility went online in 1980 — is adding another two fabs to its Ocotillo campus at a cost of $20 billion.
A billionaire’s proposal to build a sustainable city in Arizona has at least one local technology leader excited, but real estate experts pointed out a few significant challenges to bringing the massive metropolis to the state.
The boost in Phoenix job postings was among the largest in the country, both in terms of percent gained and of sheer volume. This glut of tech job openings is part of the larger recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic, which killed hundreds of thousands in the United States, put many people out of work and inspired others to seek new careers.
Arizona has drawn national attention recently thanks to Lucid Motors, Nikola Corp., ElectraMeccanica and Local Motors all choosing to build their EVs in the state. Yet some observers think — or hope — that this is just the beginning.