"AI companies like Meta and OpenAI have been offering multimillion-dollar pay packages to top talent, hoping to lure the best researchers and engineers away from their competitors. But there’s another dimension of the AI talent wars that has garnered far less attention: the massive shortage of electricians, plumbers, and heating and cooling technicians in the US who can build the physical data centers that power AI.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates that between 2024 and 2034, there will be a shortage of roughly 81,000 electricians on average each year in the US, measured in terms of unfilled jobs.
The BLS projects the number of employed electricians to grow 9 percent over the next decade, “much faster than the average for all occupations.” One McKinsey study came to a more dire conclusion: Between 2023 and 2030, it estimates that an additional 130,000 trained electricians—as well as 240,000 construction laborers and 150,000 construction supervisors—would be needed in the US.
The rapid construction of AI data centers across the country is likely a major driver of demand for skilled tradespeople.
According to a May blog by the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers—a labor union representing electrical workers in the US, Canada, and US territories—some local affiliates “are facing single data center projects that require two, three, sometimes four times their current membership.”"
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