Story by Benjamin McCormick
“You can’t miss it,” Siler City Mayor Donald Matthews said.
As you’re driving down Highway 64 in Chatham County, North Carolina, there are miles filled by unassuming buildings scattered on either side of the highway — and then, suddenly, there’s Wolfspeed.
At first, it appears in the corner of your eye. But gradually, its sheer size — the facility will be 1 million square feet by 2030 — commands your attention. And if you blink, you definitely won’t miss it.
Wolfspeed, a semiconductor maker based in Durham, already employs over 2,500 North Carolinians. Its new manufacturing site in Siler City is expected to bring 1,800 more jobs. Once construction is completed, it will be the world’s largest silicon carbide facility.
Despite its newfound industrialization, Siler City, at the moment, is still very much a small, rural town. Change is coming quickly, though. Wolfspeed’s project will provide a spark to Siler City. The rest of Chatham County, however, will have far more than just Wolfspeed’s 1,800 jobs coming in.
VinFast, a Vietnamese electric car manufacturer, is building an assembly plant in Chatham in the town of Moncure. The plant is expected to bring upwards of 7,500 jobs, making it the largest economic development project in state history.
Both manufacturing projects combined with FedEx’s shipping hub launch (located next to the VinFast site) in April will bring a staggering estimated 9,800 jobs to the area.
This much change will come with its challenges. “Growing pains,” is how Matthews described it. And any time there is this much change, questions arise. For instance, who is going to get those jobs?
Certainly the people of Chatham County would benefit from these opportunities, and many of these positions could be filled by the county’s quickly growing Hispanic community.
According to the 2022 population census, Chatham County is home to just under 80,000 residents. Siler City has around 8,000 residents — 53% of whom are Hispanic, making it the state’s first majority Latino municipality.
Paul Cuadros, a professor at UNC-Chapel Hill, is a resident of Chatham County. He is an award-winning reporter focused primarily on issues of race and poverty. His reporting on Latino communities in rural poultry-processing towns in the South changed the trajectory of his life.
That’s what landed him in Siler City, where many Latino residents work at the town’s current largest private-sector employer: a poultry plant run by Mountaire Farms.
Cuadros moved to Siler City in 1999 and helped start the boy’s soccer program at nearby Jordan-Matthews High School, a team that he has been coaching for over 20 years now. His team is well represented by the town’s Latino community.
The town’s Latino community typifies the modest working class of Siler City. Cuadros said the Latino community is dedicated, and its identity is deeply embedded in its role in the workforce. He said that work is a matter of pride for the community. Many define themselves based on what they do. The value of work is built into the fabric of the community.
“The Latino community in West Chatham mostly is an immigrant labor force, known and reliable and dependable on the labor that they provide,” Cuadros said.
Cuadros thinks that the Latino workforce in Chatham is an enticing workforce for any industry coming into Chatham County. It would be a great labor force for Wolfspeed to look at when hiring, he said.
While the population of Siler City is small, it’s clear that the workforce available to Chatham is much larger. The county’s centralized location makes it an ideal hub for economic development. Chatham borders Wake, Durham, Orange and Alamance counties, with Guilford not too far away.
Michael Smith, the president of the Chatham County Economic Development Corporation, said that the workforce available within a 45-minute drive of the plants exceeds 1 million people.
According to the Census, less than half of Chatham County residents have a college degree. In Siler City, college graduates are just 15.7% of the town’s population. There will be many opportunities for entry-level jobs that only require a high school education at Wolfspeed. Smith said there will be more entry-level jobs than senior-level jobs.
When there are nearly 10,000 new jobs, you need a diverse group of workers to fill those roles. Some of those workers will come from outside the Triangle. But according to Brad Kohn, Wolfspeed’s chief legal officer, the company is looking to hire many local residents too.
“When you’ve got to hire 1,800 people for one facility, that’s a lot of people,” he said. “And so we know we are going to have to hire from the local community.”
The influx of new workers will cause a demographic shift in Chatham County’s population from a mere numbers perspective; there’s no denying that. However, it’s unclear whether these changes might cause the Latino population to rise or fall.
“I hope [the Latino population] increases,” Smith said. “Because every company in basically every county in North Carolina needs as many people to work as possible. And so, we want to be a very welcoming and inclusive community.”
Mayor Matthews believes all communities within Siler City should be working together for one common goal: to make sure everybody has a better standard of life.
Per the U.S. Census, 28.9% of citizens in Siler City were living in poverty in 2022. That’s much higher than the 12.8% statewide average.
It’s clear that these large manufacturing plants are going to change the fabric of Chatham County. However, they are also providing opportunities for communities that are struggling financially.
According to Matthews, the money these projects bring for the town coupled with an increased tax base should give the town more opportunities to strengthen its resources for residents.
Matthews said funds could be used to revitalize the downtown area, parks and neighborhoods. He talked about how downtown Siler City has changed over time. The businesses he used to see aren’t there anymore. But with the reemergence of downtown areas in towns throughout the state, Matthews believes Siler City can use its recent economic development to join in on the wave.
VinFast and Wolfspeed are already working with local colleges and community colleges to train local workers for jobs at the plants. Smith said that by working with the companies, local community colleges are qualified to train local residents here in North Carolina.
Kohn said that Wolfspeed wants to talk with students at local schools (K-12) about careers in semiconductors and get them focused on STEM.
These efforts could help keep many jobs open to locals.
It’s an exciting time for Chatham and Siler City, according to Matthews. The Wolfspeed and VinFast projects help Chatham stand out. They give residents a reason to remain in the county, rather than chase high-earning jobs somewhere else.
“When our children go off to college, they have nothing to come back here to,” he said. “There’s not an industry base here that really requires a college degree.”
Now that’s changing. And when you want a better life for the people of the town, you have to embrace that change, Matthews said.
“It’s not going to be the sleepy little town where Aunt Bee [Frances Bavier] retired after Mayberry, after ‘The Andy Griffith Show,”’ Cuadros said. “Those days are gonna be gone. So it’s going to be something else, and that’s going to upset a lot of people. But, other people are going to invest in that and create a new community there.”
