WASHINGTON -- Top Biden administration officials will hold a second summit with industry leaders Monday to discuss semiconductors as a shortage of the chips continues to stall auto manufacturing and threaten jobs around the country.
The White House said national security adviser Jake Sullivan, National Economic Council Director Brian Deese and Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo will discuss semiconductor supplies and the American Jobs Act with executives from about 20 companies, including top chipmakers and automakers.
The meeting follows an earlier summit the administration called in late February to address the supply shortage, but the situation has since worsened, with General Motors and Ford announcing Thursday their plans to temporarily idle more North American factories that can't get enough semiconductors. The GM shutdowns, lasting a week or two per factory, affect 10,000 workers. On Friday, GM announced it was canceling weekend overtime shifts at two of its U.S factories, in Michigan and Indiana.
The chief executives of Ford and GM will attend the summit, along with the leaders of semiconductor companies Intel, Global Foundries and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., the White House said. Auto suppliers and various tech companies, including Alphabet and medical-device maker Medtronic, will also attend.
The White House has been leaning on chipmakers for weeks to increase production of automotive semiconductors, but there are no easy fixes, industry sources say.
Many semiconductor factories around the world stopped producing chips for automotive use last year, when demand for cars dropped at the start of the pandemic. Chipmakers switched instead to making more semiconductors for computers and electronic devices, which were in high demand.