The economic profile of the Sherman-Denison metropolitan area continues to shift toward manufacturing, supported by the start of production at Texas Instruments' first new 300mm semiconductor wafer fab in Sherman and by the formation of a nearby supplier cluster. April 2026 federal labor data and primary corporate disclosures together describe a regional labor market that is gaining factory jobs faster than the broader employment base.
TL;DR
- Sherman-Denison MSA manufacturing employment hit 8,500 jobs in April 2026, up 2.4 percent year over year.
- Total nonfarm employment grew 1.1 percent over the same period, meaning manufacturing is expanding more than twice as fast as the broader job base.
- Texas Instruments started production at its SM1 wafer fab in Sherman on December 17, 2025, anchoring a planned four-fab, up to $40 billion mega-site.
- Advanced Process Solutions announced a $40 million, 175-job supplier facility nearby in Van Alstyne in May 2026, the kind of clustering that follows anchor semiconductor investments.
The labor-market numbers
According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, total nonfarm employment in the Sherman-Denison, Texas metropolitan statistical area was a preliminary 55,000 jobs in April 2026, a 1.1 percent year-over-year increase, with an unemployment rate of 3.9 percent in March 2026 (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2026). Manufacturing employment in the MSA reached a preliminary 8,500 jobs in April 2026, up 2.4 percent year over year. Manufacturing's growth rate is more than double the rate of the overall employment base, the kind of divergence that historically signals an active industrial investment cycle.
The anchor: Texas Instruments SM1 in production
The largest single driver of the region's industrial expansion is the Texas Instruments semiconductor mega-site in Sherman. On December 17, 2025, Texas Instruments announced the start of production at its SM1 fab, the first of up to four planned 300mm wafer fabs at the site (Texas Instruments, 2025). According to the company's own disclosures, the Sherman mega-site represents a potential $40 billion investment, includes plans for up to four connected fabs (SM1, SM2, SM3, and SM4), supports 3,000 direct TI jobs plus thousands of indirect jobs in supporting industries, and is designed to manufacture hundreds of millions of chips daily across 1.3 million square feet of clean room space (Texas Instruments, n.d.).
The start of production at our newest wafer fab in Sherman, TX represents what TI does best: owning every part of the manufacturing process to deliver the foundational semiconductors that are vital for nearly every type of electronic system. As the largest analog and embedded processing semiconductor manufacturer in the U.S., TI is uniquely positioned to provide dependable 300mm semiconductor manufacturing capacity at scale.
Haviv Ilan, TI's president and chief executive officer, made those remarks in the company's announcement (Texas Instruments, 2025). The investment scale at Sherman is part of a broader corporate plan. On June 18, 2025, Texas Instruments announced plans to invest more than $60 billion across seven U.S. semiconductor fabs in Texas and Utah, which the company described as the "largest investment in foundational semiconductor manufacturing in U.S. history" (Texas Instruments, 2025a). The company has also been allocated up to $1.6 billion in direct CHIPS and Science Act funding to support construction of SM1, SM2, and a Utah facility under an August 2024 agreement with the U.S. Commerce Department (Dallas Innovates, 2024).
The supplier cluster forms
Anchor investments in semiconductors typically pull supplier ecosystems to nearby sites. That pattern is now visible in the corridor around Sherman. In May 2026, Advanced Process Solutions announced plans to build a $40 million, 100,000-square-foot manufacturing facility in Van Alstyne's Cold Springs Industrial Park, expected to create 175 jobs, with construction slated to begin this summer and complete by early 2027 (Wadsack, 2026). The company purchased the nine-acre site from the Van Alstyne Economic Development Corporation for $792,000.
This is a momentous time for APS and we are excited to expand our advanced research and development, high-purity manufacturing, and cleanroom capabilities in Texas. This milestone reflects APS's long-term commitment to supporting the rapidly growing U.S. semiconductor ecosystem with precision-engineered process solutions for leading semiconductor manufacturers and technology partners.
Suhas Uppalapati, APS chairman, made those remarks in the announcement (Wadsack, 2026). According to Joey Grisham, executive director of the Van Alstyne Community and Economic Development Corporation, Advanced Process Solutions is "a trusted supplier to Texas Instruments and GlobalWafers" (Wadsack, 2026).