{"id":258547,"date":"2026-05-29T06:26:00","date_gmt":"2026-05-29T10:26:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/05\/29\/data-center-frenzy-is-spurring-a-jobs-boomlet-for-blue-collar-workers\/"},"modified":"2026-05-29T06:45:26","modified_gmt":"2026-05-29T10:45:26","slug":"data-center-frenzy-is-spurring-a-jobs-boomlet-for-blue-collar-workers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/05\/29\/data-center-frenzy-is-spurring-a-jobs-boomlet-for-blue-collar-workers\/","title":{"rendered":"Data center frenzy is spurring a jobs boomlet for blue-collar workers"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbsnews.com\/news\/ai-data-center-jobs-construction-technician\/\">Data center frenzy is spurring a jobs boomlet for blue-collar workers<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbsnews.com\/news\/ai-data-center-jobs-construction-technician\/\">https:\/\/www.cbsnews.com\/news\/ai-data-center-jobs-construction-technician\/<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Publish Date: <a href=\"publish_date]\">2026-05-29 06:26:00<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Source Domain: <a href=\"www.cbsnews.com\">www.cbsnews.com<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Exactly how artificial intelligence will shake up the U.S. job market won&#8217;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 <span class=\"link\">axe white-collar roles<\/span>.<\/p>\n<p>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.<\/p>\n<p>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.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;They are pretty sparsely populated,&#8221; he told CBS News.<\/p>\n<p>Data centers typically require relatively few full-time workers to operate, like the server farms that power broadband internet services. \u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Roles data centers create for long-term maintenance aren&#8217;t huge in volume,&#8221; added Revelio Labs chief economist Lisa Simon. &#8220;They are a much more capital-intensive than labor-intensive undertaking.&#8221;<\/p>\n<h2>Trillion-dollar boom?<\/h2>\n<p>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\u00a0McKinsey.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>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.<\/p>\n<p>This investment increases demand for construction workers, as well as data technicians, electricians, HVAC specialists and maintenance personnel needed to support operations.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>U.S. data centers in total are expected to generate 4.7 million temporary construction jobs, according to a 2025\u00a0report 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&#8230;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbsnews.com\/news\/ai-data-center-jobs-construction-technician\/\">Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Data center frenzy is spurring a jobs boomlet for blue-collar workers https:\/\/www.cbsnews.com\/news\/ai-data-center-jobs-construction-technician\/ Publish Date: 2026-05-29&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":258548,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/assets2.cbsnewsstatic.com\/hub\/i\/r\/2026\/05\/25\/afcb27b3-5ef8-44d2-ac0a-e13623ad1c96\/thumbnail\/1200x630\/8446d2675f78ddfcbbd6cee88b4401b2\/gettyimages-2270237750.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-258547","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-artificial-intelligence"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/258547"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=258547"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/258547\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":258549,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/258547\/revisions\/258549"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/258548"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=258547"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=258547"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=258547"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}