Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo wants to remake the image of manufacturing for younger workers, Hope writes.

Why it matters: Raimondo has been instrumental in driving public and political support for the CHIPS Act, which is expected to create an explosion of new jobs in the semiconductor industry.

• Part of her job now will be to prime the labor market to meet that new demand, which will be shaped by the Commerce Department's funding choices.

As it stands, the U.S. semiconductor sector could already be facing a shortfall of hundreds of thousands of workers and engineers by 2030, according to estimates from Deloitte and McKinsey.

What she's saying: "What I'm trying to do is let Gen Zers know [that] this isn't your father's or grandfather's manufacturing operation that may have existed 30, 40 years ago," Raimondo told Axios after addressing a group of college students, semiconductor sector interns and recent grads last week.

Driving the news: During the virtual event organized by Handshake, a jobs platform for Gen Z, she talked about 250,000 "high-paying, six-figure jobs," soon to be created from the CHIPS Act.

• "I want your generation to think about making a living making things in America," Raimondo told the group.
• "For a long time, that [hasn't been] the case."

Zoom out: Raimondo has been making her case on the road, traveling this year to community colleges in Portland and Austin to tour training facilities and talk to students.

Go deeper

The semiconductor industry has already started to widen its pipeline of talent, according to data from Handshake, Hope continues.

• Companies in the sector increased their internship postings by 40.5% between September and March of the 2022-2023 school year from the prior year.

The other side: Young workers have already been flocking to new opportunities.

• Submitted applications for full-time and internship positions from the 20 biggest semiconductor companies are up 79% and 163% for full-time and intern roles, respectively, this academic year.
• That's compared to around 20% growth in other fields.

The big picture: Handshake's platform includes over 13 million students and young alumni.

✍️ The Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers requested to meet with striking writers, a sign of a stalemate break. (CNBC)

🔧 The UAW presented bargaining priorities, including shorter, 32-hour workweeks and double-digit pay bumps. (WSJ)

🤝 Stripe named Confluent executive Steffan Tomlinson CFO. (Axios Pro: Fintech Deals)

China's reopening may be slower than most companies would like, but not for Starbucks, which reported a 46% same-store sales growth in its quarter ending July 2, Hope writes.

Elsewhere...

• A still-weak PC market and weak demand for server chips hurt AMD's second-quarter sales, which fell 18% from last year.
• Meanwhile, Qualcomm's profit projections fell short of expectations amid a smartphone industry slump, but its auto chips business is a bright spot.
• CVS' push into health care benefits, higher drug prices and prescription sales helped drive a 10% increase in second-quarter revenue, amid a greater cost-cutting push, which has led to 5,000 cut jobs.
• Etsy attracted 91 million active buyers in the second quarter, a new high.
• And Robinhood continued to see an annual dip in monthly active users in the second quarter.

The IRS is going paperless, Hope writes.

• Next year, U.S. taxpayers will have the option to submit all correspondence to the IRS digitally, with the agency aiming for paperless processing for all tax returns by the 2025 tax season, the Treasury Department said today.

Why it matters: The plan could eliminate up to 200 million pieces of paper each year, cut processing times in half and speed up refunds by several weeks.

Flashback: The pandemic, along with staffing shortages and other filing delays, created a massive backlog of unprocessed paper tax returns.

What to watch: By the 2025 tax filing season, 150 of the most-used, nontax forms will become available in digital, mobile-friendly formats.

"It doesn't really matter that much. … They point out some issues which we all knew about."