Dive Brief:
- Data center development has created a significant new demand for employees with specialized skills — especially those in construction, utilities and telecommunications — causing acute labor shortages in the industry and driving up wages, according to an Aug. 25 report from global staffing and workforce consulting firm Kelly Services Inc.
- Kelly’s analysis of its workforce data, cross-referenced with data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, found that by 2026, data center employment is expected to reach 650,000 positions, a 30% increase from 2023; data center-related construction jobs will likely exceed 180,000 positions through 2028. Yet, as data centers struggle to fill critical roles, 25% of their personnel get hired away by competing hyperscalers and operators, according to the report.
- To build a sustainable talent pipeline and maintain project momentum, data center employers can take a proactive skills-based approach, such as by recruiting from adjacent technical sectors like telecommunications, utility grid operations and industrial HVAC, Kelly recommended. Employers should also implement rapid upskilling programs, it said.
Dive Insight:
The talent scramble around data centers is a microcosm of what employers experience in a severely high-demand, low-supply talent pool.
Driven by a surge in investment in artificial intelligence and cloud infrastructure, the U.S. data center market is undergoing the largest buildout in history — with growth being held up by the shortage of skilled workers, Kelly found.
The biggest constraint “is no longer just power, land or equipment. It’s talent,” Joel Leege, president of Kelly Science, Engineering, Technology & Telecom, noted in a media release.
However, even though 90% of data center operators identify staffing shortages as a critical restraint on their ability to build or expand facilities, “workforce planning failure represents the primary cause of delay within organizations’ control,” Kelly said.
The scarcity of specialized talent is also driving up salaries, though pay varies by 46 percentage points across the U.S., from Silicon Valley at 34.2% above the national average, to Omaha at 11.8% below, Kelly’s analysis showed. National midpoint estimates start at $175,000 for AI engineers, $178,000 for data center operators, $135,000 for commissioning program managers and $128,000 for construction managers, Kelly found.
The scale of data center development makes the labor challenge different from staffing a single large project, pushing employers to rethink how they recruit and retain talent, industry executives said during a virtual event last week hosted by Construction Dive. For example, in addition to pay and benefits, employers are offering incentives like formal mobility programs for remote projects, student loan repayment assistance, and career development programs, participants said.
Competition for workers reaches beyond data centers: It’s pulling trained professionals away from other settings, according to a survey released last month by the National Fire Protection Association, which sets standards for fire and electrical safety in the built environment.
Researchers have also suggested that due to the soaring demand for skilled trade workers needed to implement AI’s infrastructure, the time-to-hire is now longer for them than for knowledge workers, Randstad reported in March.