Highlights
- The United States is urgently working to develop an independent rare earth supply chain.
- There are significant skilled labor shortages across mining, processing, and manufacturing stages hindering progress.
- A comprehensive workforce development strategy is crucial for the supply chain.
- This strategy involves academic partnerships, vocational training, and targeted industrial policies.
- The aim is to create a talent pipeline for critical minerals sectors.
- Rebuilding the rare earth supply chain requires not just infrastructure investment.
- Substantial human capital development is needed to compete with China’s established expertise in rare earth technologies.
The United States is racing to rebuild a mine-to-magnet rare earth supply chain independent of China, but a critical obstacle looms: the shortage of skilled labor at every step of the value chain. A recent multibillion-dollar Department of Defense deal with MP Materials – which makes DoD the company’s largest shareholder – underscores the urgency of scaling up domestic rare earth mining, processing, and magnet manufacturing. There is no time like the present to address the labor needs for this emerging “ex-China” market, from upstream extraction to downstream manufacturing and even recycling of rare earth elements.
Upstream: Mining and Separation Needs
Rebuilding upstream capacity starts at the mine site. The Mountain Pass mine in California – currently America’s sole rare earth mine – is expanding beyond extraction into on-site separation of rare earth oxides. To staff such operations, a range of skilled workers is required:
- Key roles: Mining engineers and geologists (for exploration and mine planning), heavy equipment operators and maintenance technicians, metallurgists and chemical process engineers (for mineral concentration and initial separation), as well as environmental and safety specialists.
Decades of offshoring have left a skills gap in this segment. U.S. universities have drastically scaled back mining and mineral processing programs – only a handful remain – whereas China boasts 39 universities granting degrees in mineral processing or metallurgy, graduating thousands of students. It’s no surprise, then, that specialists like mining engineers, metallurgists, and geologists are in short supply in the U.S. per “The Missing Midstream” by the Bipartisan Policy Center (opens in a new tab).
In fact, mining engineering graduates have declined by 39% since 2016, an alarming trend as new rare earth projects emerge in states like Wyoming (Bear Lodge), Montana (Sheep Creek), and others. Without bolstering the talent pipeline for mining and separation chemistry, these upstream projects could stall for lack of experienced personnel.
Midstream: Processing and Refining Challenges
Midstream processing – converting rare earth concentrates into refined oxides, metals, and alloys – is the critical link that has been missing on U.S. soil for years. New processing plants are planned or underway (for example, Lynas Corp’s separation facility in Texas and expanded facilities at Mountain Pass), but ramping them up will require highly specialized chemical knowledge:
- Key roles: Chemical engineers and metallurgists (to design and run separation processes), process control engineers, laboratory technicians and quality control analysts, and plant operators trained in solvent extraction and metallurgical techniques.
The laboratory and chemical processing expertise needed here is precisely what the U.S. lacks after decades of relying on China. Analysts note that China spent decades perfecting rare earth separation, building a deep bench of experts, while “the U.S. faces a skills gap and lacks trained specialists in rare earth processing (engineers, metallurgists, chemists) as reported by Rare Earth Exchanges (REEx).
Standing up a complex hydrometallurgical refinery without experienced staff can be a recipe for delays and cost overruns, per the aforementioned 2024 Bipartisan Policy Center report (opens in a new tab).
Indeed, midstream projects across critical minerals are already struggling to find talent – the U.S. industrial sector faced a 600,000-worker shortfall in 2023, and critical mineral facilities must compete with booming semiconductor and battery plants for qualified chemists and technicians.
Some experts warn that America may even need to recruit foreign talent in the short term to fill the gap, with part of the needed rare-earth processing know-how likely coming from Asia per REEx reports until new domestic workers can be trained. The Chinese government is clamping down on experts in that Asian nation. When they seek to travel there is newfound interest in the purpose of the trip.
Downstream: Magnet Manufacturing & Assembly
The downstream segment – making the permanent magnets and components that utilize rare earth metals – is virtually a greenfield in the United States today. Nearly 100% of neodymium-iron-boron (NdFeB) magnets, the most widely used high-strength rare earth magnets, are produced in China or Japan. That is beginning to change: MP Materials will be commissioning a large magnet factory in Texas (targeting 10,000 tons annual output by 2028) plus the new deal with the Department of Defense– and startups like Noveon Magnetics in Texas have started pilot production. However, a magnet manufacturing workforce must be built almost from scratch:
- Key roles: Materials scientists and magnetics engineers (to develop magnet alloys and processes), manufacturing engineers for powder metallurgy and sintering, CNC machinists and assembly technicians for cutting and shaping magnets, quality assurance specialists, and skilled trades (electricians, millwrights) to maintain advanced manufacturing equipment.
At present, Noveon (opens in a new tab) is one of the few U.S. manufacturers of high-performance sintered NdFeB magnets, with others due to come online soon as reported by Magnetics Magazine (opens in a new tab).
This indicates how few American workers today have hands-on experience in magnet production. New magnet plants in states like Texas (and potentially manufacturing hubs like Pennsylvania, where a magnet production cluster could emerge given its industrial base) will need a pipeline of workers trained in powder handling, furnace operations, and precision assembly. Many of these skills overlap with general advanced manufacturing, but some, like understanding magnetic material behavior and maintaining powder metallurgy furnaces, are highly specialized. The broader manufacturing labor shortage makes this even harder: U.S. manufacturing job openings are projected to hit 2.1 million unfilled positions by 2030 (opens in a new tab). Without targeted training, magnet factories may struggle to hire enough machinists, technicians, and engineers with the requisite knowledge of rare earth materials.
Recycling: A Growing Opportunity
An often-overlooked segment of the supply chain is recycling of rare earth elements from end-of-life products (e-waste, electric vehicle motors, wind turbine magnets, etc.). Recycling can reduce dependence on mining by reclaiming rare earths from used devices, but it requires its own specialized workforce combining materials processing and recycling skills:
- Key roles: Chemical process engineers (to develop extraction processes for recycled materials), recycling plant operators and technicians, materials scientists specialized in secondary recovery, and logistics experts for the collection and sorting of end-of-life electronics.
Recycling rare earths involves breaking down complex products and extracting the rare earth content efficiently and safely. For example, a team at the Department of Energy’s Critical Materials Institute developed a process to dissolve and recover rare earths from shredded hard disk drivesameslab.gov (opens in a new tab)ameslab.gov (opens in a new tab) – scaling up such processes will demand chemists and engineers with niche expertise. Companies are emerging in this space: American Resources Corporation’s ReElement Technologies (opens in a new tab) (linked to Purdue University) is opening a plant in Indiana focused on recycling rare earths and battery materials, aiming to produce high-purity oxides and create over 300 full-time jobs in the process. This kind of facility will rely on workers who understand both traditional metallurgical techniques and innovative recycling methods. Workforce development for recycling is doubly important because it intersects with the broader recycling industry (for electronics, autos, etc.), meaning competition for skilled labor. As the U.S. looks to increase recycling of critical minerals, it will need training programs to produce technicians and engineers fluent in urban mining of rare metals.
Industrial Policy and Workforce Development: Bridging the Gap
Reorienting a supply chain away from China is not just about funding mines and factories – it’s about investing in people. The reality is that the U.S. needs an industrial policy for talent development in critical minerals. China’s own rise in rare earths offers a blueprint: regions like Baotou invested heavily in education and skills training, to the point that Baotou now possesses world-leading expertise and scaled-up operations that other regions struggle to emulate as cited by a Wilson Center podcast (opens in a new tab).
Over the past 30 years, China has established multiple rare earth research hubs and cultivated “legions of students” in materials science and metallurgy, ensuring a steady flow of experts. In contrast, U.S. efforts in this area waned – the Bureau of Mines, which once spearheaded minerals research and training, was defunded in the 1990s. Reversing this trend will require proactive public and private measures to grow a new generation of rare earth professionals.
Encouragingly, some initiatives are underway. The Department of Energy and state universities are launching programs to build a talent pipeline. For instance, the University of Wyoming’s School of Energy Resources (opens in a new tab) is hosting a Critical Minerals Leadership Academy (opens in a new tab) to train the next generation of industry leaders across geology, engineering, business, and policy disciplines. In West Virginia, Concord University (opens in a new tab) has set up a rare earth element analysis center to give students hands-on experience with critical mineral extraction techniques (opens in a new tab), supported by federal and state grants. These academic efforts need to be scaled up dramatically. Only a few U.S. colleges still offer mining or mineral processing degrees, so expanding scholarships, modernizing curricula, and partnering with industry will be crucial to replenish the ranks of mining and metallurgical engineers.
Equally important are community college and apprenticeship programs to train technicians and tradespeople. The private sector is beginning to collaborate in this arena: ReElement’s partnership with Ivy Tech Community College (opens in a new tab) in Indiana will create a tailored training and degree pathway for workers at its new facilities. This “earn-and-learn” model could be replicated near Mountain Pass in California (to train local operators in mining and separation) or in Texas and Pennsylvania to support magnet manufacturing. Unions and trade schools can also play a role by establishing apprenticeships for roles like millwrights, electricians, and machine operators, specific to critical minerals plants.
Note regional efforts covered by REEx, such as in Pennsylvania. A recent REEx podcast spotlighted Pennsylvania’s rapidly evolving rare earth elements (REE) ecosystem, highlighting a collaborative effort between academia, industry, and regional economic development. The conversation featured leaders from Penn State University, engineering firm Tetra Tech, and economic group Clearly Ahead Development, all working to extract REEs from unconventional feedstocks like acid mine drainage and legacy coal waste. Penn State is piloting innovative, low-impact separation technologies to recover REEs and critical minerals, as well as offering education via its Center for Critical Minerals (opens in a new tab).
A soon-to-be-published online podcast with REEx and Wyoming Congresswoman Harriet Hageman (opens in a new tab) touches on workforce development needs in America. Congresswoman Hageman is a big advocate of community colleges and programs for trades as opposed to expensive four-year universities in many cases. Wyoming stands ready to support programs at the community college level to develop the talent necessary to support nascent rare earth element mining and processing initiatives in Wyoming.
The federal government can accelerate these efforts by making workforce development a formal pillar of critical minerals policy. Just as the CHIPS Act earmarked $200 million for semiconductor workforce training (opens in a new tab), a comparable investment could be directed toward critical minerals education and training.
REEx is analyzing President Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill to assess opportunities for workforce development in the rare earth element supply chain space.
Programs could fund vocational programs in mining regions (e.g., California’s Mojave Desert, Wyoming’s mining towns) and manufacturing hubs, create grants for universities to research rare earth processing while training students, and support industry-led training consortia. Public-private partnerships, like the DoD’s support for MP Materials, should include requirements or incentives for workforce training programs to ensure that as new facilities come online, American workers are ready to operate them.
Groups such as Alliance Texas (opens in a new tab) are emphasizing the growing need for rare earth element supply chain skills.
Recommendations
So, what to do? Recommendations emerging from this analysis include: as promoted by REEx, a coordinated national strategy to expand mining and materials engineering education, incentives for companies to develop in-house training (with government support), recruitment of international experts to jump-start knowledge transfer, and leveraging existing skilled manufacturing labor (for instance, upskilling steelworkers in Pennsylvania or oil & gas workers in Texas for magnet production roles). Fast-tracking work visas for specialists and creating exchange programs with allied countries (like Australia or Japan, which have rare earth expertise) could also help fill immediate gaps while domestic training ramps up.
Ultimately, rebuilding the rare earth supply chain ex-China is as much a human capital challenge as an infrastructure one. A hard-hitting industrial policy that finances facilities and funds workforce development is essential. If the U.S. can mobilize its educational institutions, government agencies, and private sector to train a new labor force – from miners and chemists to magnet assemblers and recycling technicians – it will not only loosen China’s grip on these critical materials but also create thousands of high-tech manufacturing and mining jobs.
The recent DoD-MP Materials deal is a dramatic leap forward for capacity; now, that capacity must be matched with competent labor. In the race to secure rare earth independence, investing in people will yield the most sustainable competitive edge.
The time to build this workforce is now, before the next phase of mines, refiners, and factories come online and find themselves shorthanded.
Sources: The content of this article is informed by analysis of current U.S. rare earth initiatives and expert commentary, first and foremost by the rapidly growing library of content within Rare Earth Exchanges (REEx) itself, but also reporting by Reuters; findings by the Bipartisan Policy Center on critical mineral labor shortages, insights from the Wilson Center experts on China’s rare earth strategy, and examples of workforce programs such as ReElement’s Ivy Tech training agreements and the University of Wyoming’s Critical Minerals Academy. These sources collectively highlight the urgent need for a robust workforce to underpin America’s rare earth supply chain renaissance.
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