Meta and Google are pairing big data-center investment with a new push to train construction and skilled trades workers across the U.S., as demand rises and opponents say the projects they enable are tied to tech layoffs and local opposition.
For anyone who’s ever watched a data center rise, the work doesn’t start with software. It starts with electricians, welders, plumbers, pipe fitters—people who can build physical infrastructure fast enough to keep AI ambitions from stalling.
Days after Meta said it was launching a $250 million program to train Americans for data center construction jobs. Google announced a parallel effort. On Thursday. the search giant said it is investing $50 million in skilled-trades training programs across the United States in fields critical to building AI and energy infrastructure.
Google’s training programs are designed for aspiring construction workers and include electricians, plumbers, pipe fitters, welders, and other laborers. A Google spokesperson said some training program partnerships are already underway.
The push is part of a broader scramble by major tech companies to build the worker pipeline needed for the next wave of data centers. Earlier this year. Oracle and Microsoft unveiled efforts aimed at expanding existing initiatives to grow the workforce needed for the AI boom—adding urgency to Meta’s and Google’s now-public moves.
Tulane University business professor Rob Lalka put it bluntly: “The constraint on growth isn’t hiring more engineers. It’s building physical infrastructure,” he said. “Silicon Valley’s white-collar executives won’t succeed without blue-collar workers across America.”
That reality is showing up in labor demand figures. The construction industry needs an estimated 349,000 new workers this year to meet demand elevated by AI, according to Associated Builders and Contractors, a trade group.
Tech companies aren’t used to recruiting for hard-hat careers. They’re used to training workers to use keyboards. So partnerships are built around established trades organizations. including the International Training Institute for the sheet metal and air conditioning industry. as Big Tech looks to bring more people into roles that keep critical systems running.
Support from organized labor has followed the announcements. Kenneth Cooper. international president of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers. said in a statement: “We welcome the support of industry leaders like Google to create good. family-sustaining jobs and meet the growing energy needs of our economy.”.
Still, every dollar tied to data-center growth carries political and community friction. Critics point to layoffs that tech companies have linked to AI. Residents across the United States have also protested data center projects in their communities in recent months.
Public opinion suggests those protests aren’t fringe. A May Gallup poll found that seven out of 10 Americans oppose living near a data center.
The scale of the buildout is growing fast. In 2025, permits were issued for 176 new data centers across 34 states—the most new permits in one year since the first was issued in 1976, Business Insider previously reported.
Taken together. the training announcements and the opposition map out a single pressure point: the industry is racing to construct the physical backbone of AI. while communities and workers are fighting over what that expansion means in practice. The companies say they’re trying to create family-sustaining jobs and meet energy needs. Critics say the fallout from AI-driven restructuring and local impacts are too heavy.
For now, Meta’s $250 million effort and Google’s $50 million skilled-trades investment signal the same bet from Big Tech: the next breakthrough may be powered less by new code than by finding enough people ready to pour concrete, wire buildings, and keep the infrastructure humming.
Meta Google data centers skilled trades training electricians plumbers welders pipe fitters AI infrastructure construction workforce shortage International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Rob Lalka Associated Builders and Contractors data center permits Gallup poll Kenneth Cooper