In June of this year, chip stock Intel (NASDAQ: INTC) announced its plans to invest €30 billion in building a chip manufacturing plant in Germany, with the support of the German government, which has pledged to cover one-third of the costs. The land for two semiconductor facilities in Magdeburg was acquired by Intel as early as November of last year. The company expects the plant to commence production within the next four to five years.

However, an unexpected problem emerged: finding workers for that chip plant became a tougher and tougher challenge. This latest reversal for Intel proved too much for some investors, who took with them just over 1% of Intel’s market cap as a result.

The word out of Germany noted that Intel needs around 3,000 people to fully staff the Magdeburg chip works, though it’s got until the end of the decade to pull that off. Given that Intel’s apprenticeship program for chip-making is now a whopping two, there’s a serious problem in the works here. Things are on the move, however; next August, Intel expects to have a class of 20 get started.

No one’s sure why Intel’s having such a tough time since even universities in the area are preparing chip making degrees to back Intel up.

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