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Big technology companies including OpenAI, Meta, and Alphabet are racing to build data centers across America to support growing artificial intelligence needs. However, their plans to spend hundreds of billions of dollars face a serious problem of not enough workers.
The shortage affects manufacturing, construction, and electrical work. Older, skilled workers are retiring faster than young people are joining these fields. The National Association of Manufacturers released figures earlier this year showing the country might lack 1.9 million manufacturing workers by 2033. The group called this both an economic problem and a threat to national security.
The construction sector needs nearly half a million additional workers in 2025 alone, according to Associated Builders and Contractors, known as ABC. The situation gets worse when considering new tariffs and shifts in immigration rules, making the challenge seem almost impossible to solve, according to industry experts.
“I think these projects are likely to go over budget and miss their deadlines, but that is typical in U.S. construction, even for not-so-complicated, large projects,” said Anirban Basu, chief economist for ABC.
“Now you add this layer of complexity, this need for precision, that would not exist in a typical apartment building or office building. … Do we have the workforce for that? Not in abundance, that’s for sure.”
Data center projects face 8.5 month backlog
ABC’s numbers show 14% of member companies have contracts for data center work. This figure stayed the same since they started tracking it in June. These companies have 8.5 months of work lined up.
The construction unemployment rate dropped to 3.2% in August, matching the lowest level ever recorded. It fell from 3.4% the month before, based on Bureau of Labor Statistics data.
George Carrillo runs the Hispanic Construction Council. He told CNBC the worker shortage is already slowing down data center projects. Hispanic-owned construction businesses are growing faster than any others, Carrillo said. His organization released a study asking for changes that would make permits faster, speed up payments to smaller contractors, and create legal ways for trained workers to stay in the country.
“These projects represent trillions in investment but require more than steel and concrete,” Carrillo wrote in an email. With predictions of a 3.2 million worker shortage by 2030 due to retirements and immigration restrictions, there’s a real risk these billion-dollar data centers could sit unfinished and unusable, he added.
Training opportunities for new workers
Mike Bellaman leads ABC. He explained to CNBC that data centers need to be built quickly because demand is immediate.
This rush creates chances for younger workers and people new to construction to learn fast and move up in their careers. They can get training in many different areas that data center projects require.
“They can become quickly masters of the trade of installing that work,” Bellaman said. “They have a huge opportunity to get a lot of on-the-job training and practical training where they become masters, so we can get apprentices up to journeyman level and specific tasks.”
These jobs can last anywhere from three years to ten years because the projects are so large, according to Pat Lynch. He works as executive managing director and global lead of CBRE’s Global Data Center Solutions. Lynch compared the scale to building railroads or major oil and gas facilities.
“I do see longer-term economic stability from these projects in these regions,” he said. “Clearly in many of these locations, you’re having to pull employment from a large regional area, not just from a single state or a couple of markets, at a time that these skilled workers are in short supply in major markets to begin with.”
Basu from ABC noted that tech companies have enough money and commitment to their growth plans that they will pay extra to bring workers from other parts of the country. They will also invest in training people.
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