Data center frenzy is spurring a jobs boomlet for blue-collar workers

Exactly how artificial intelligence will shake up the U.S. job market won't be certain for years. In the short term, the rapid buildout of data centers powering the rise of artificial intelligence is creating a boomlet in blue-collar jobs even as some companies invest in AI and axe white-collar roles.

For now, most of the employment opportunities spawned by the installation of data centers are construction jobs, experts told CBS News, noting that such jobs are temporary.

Other job gains stemming from the ramp-up in data center construction will have a more limited impact, according to Ben Zweig, a labor economist and CEO of Revelio Labs, a provider of workforce intelligence.

"They are pretty sparsely populated," he told CBS News.

Data centers typically require relatively few full-time workers to operate, like the server farms that power broadband internet services.

"Roles data centers create for long-term maintenance aren't huge in volume," added Revelio Labs chief economist Lisa Simon. "They are a much more capital-intensive than labor-intensive undertaking."

Technology companies are pouring billions into building data centers across the U.S., with spending on the facilities estimated to reach as much as $7 trillion by 2030, according to McKinsey.

The U.S. has roughly 4,000 existing data centers, while some 3,000 more 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 in total are expected to generate 4.7 million temporary construction jobs, according to a 2025 report from the American Edge Project, a policy advocacy group formed by Meta that promotes tech industry interests. The group also projected that data centers would create roughly 697,000 permanent jobs to operate and manage such facilities.

Although many of the jobs associated with putting up a data center are temporary, the investment can inject money into local economies, Greg Wright, a workforce expert and author of a recent Brookings Institution report on data centers' employment effects, told CBS News.

"When construction companies ship people in to build these things out, those people need to stay in hotels and eat. So the buildout of a data center can produce a local employment impact," he said.

At the same time, the rush to erect data centers is prompting mounting public pushback from opponents who say they strain local power grids and raise environmental concerns.

Other critics decry the billions of dollars in tax breaks that local political leaders often dangle as incentives for companies to build data centers, saying such giveaways are disproportionate to the modest number of jobs the facilities create.

Once data centers are built, they require specialized data technicians to operate and maintain them.

"Every AI data center requires people who can monitor, repair and continuously operate these facilities," Parminder K. Jassal, a fiber optics engineer and cofounder of Umudl, a worker training and hiring platform, told CBS News.

These specialized data center technicians install, monitor and maintain the thousands of computer servers housed in data centers, which resemble largely empty warehouses full of high-tech machinery. That includes troubleshooting equipment failures and handling other tasks that can be performed remotely.

"The role focuses specifically on keeping the physical infrastructure behind all the computing and AI systems running," Jassal said, noting that data center technicians work in shifts so the facilities are staffed around the clock.

According to job search site Glassdoor, a data center technician in the U.S. earns a median salary of $88,000 per year. Microsoft, IBM, Amazon and Google are among the employers that advertise open roles on Glassdoor.