Data center frenzy is spurring a jobs boomlet for blue-collar workers
AI skills are vital for Americans looking for new jobs 03:24
Exactly how artificial intelligence will shake up the US job market will not be clear for years. In the short term, the rapid construction of data centers powering the rise of AI is creating a boom in blue-collar jobs, even as some companies invest in AI. undermine white-collar roles.
Experts speaking to CBS News stated that for now, most of the employment opportunities created by the installation of data centers are construction jobs and such jobs are temporary.
Other job gains from an increase in data center construction will have a more limited impact, according to Ben Zweig, CEO and labor economist at workforce intelligence provider Revelio Labs.
“They’re pretty sparsely populated,” he told CBS News.
The rush to establish data centers also causes the establishment of public step back from competitors who say straining local power grids and raise environmental concerns.
Other critics decry the billions of dollars in tax breaks that local political leaders have dangled as incentives for companies to build data centers, saying such giveaways are disproportionate to the modest number of jobs created by the facilities.
Trillion dollar boom?
Data centers, like the server farms that power broadband internet services, typically require relatively few full-time employees.
“The volume of roles that data centers create for long-term maintenance is not huge,” said Lisa Simon, chief economist at Revelio Labs. “These are much more capital-intensive ventures than labor-intensive ventures.”
Technology companies are spending billions of dollars building data centers across the United States, and spending on facilities is predicted to reach $7 trillion by 2030. McKinsey.
There are approximately 4,000 existing data centers in the U.S., while another 3,000 or so have been announced or are under construction, according to Apollo Global Management.
This investment increases demand for construction workers, as well as data technicians, electricians, HVAC specialists and maintenance personnel needed to support operations.
U.S. data centers are expected to create a total of 4.7 million temporary construction jobs by 2025 report From the American Edge Project, a policy advocacy group created by Meta that promotes the interests of the tech industry. The group also predicted that data centers would create approximately 697,000 permanent jobs to operate and manage such facilities.
Although much of the work involved in building data centers is temporary, the investment can put money into local economies, says Greg Wright, a workforce expert and a recent Brookings Institution author. report CBS News was briefed on the employment impacts of data centers.
