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How is the data-center boom affecting construction workers?
Two different measures show the scale of the change, but they describe different things. The U.S. Census Bureau counted 501,000 people working in data centers in 2023, up from 306,000 in 2016—more than 60% growth. Those figures cover data-center employment broadly; they are not a count of construction workers or a measure of construction vacancies. Census also reports that the growth varies by state, so the national increase does not mean every local labor market faces the same pressure.
Construction spending offers a separate view of project activity. Associated General Contractors of America (AGC), citing Census Bureau data, reported that data-center construction spending reached a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $59.3 billion in May 2026, 23% above a year earlier and about 8% of private nonresidential construction spending. The annualized rate is not the amount spent during May. Separately, 57% of contractors in an AGC survey expected the value of data-center projects in 2026 to exceed 2025; that is a reported expectation, not a final spending result.
Neither employment nor spending alone quantifies a labor shortage. Together, however, they help explain why data-center work has become a consequential source of demand for contractors and the workers who build power- and cooling-intensive facilities.
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Why do data-center projects compete for skilled workers?
A data center is more than a building filled with servers. Its construction can require specialized electrical systems, backup generators, cooling equipment, fiber connections, security and utility infrastructure. AGC identifies electricians, operating engineers, concrete specialists, ironworkers, plumbers, pipefitters, truck drivers, project managers and engineers among the occupations involved.
| Work area | Examples of the work | Roles identified by AGC |
|---|---|---|
| Power and backup | Electrical systems, generators and connections to utility infrastructure | Electricians, engineers, project managers |
| Cooling and building systems | Cooling systems and associated piping | Plumbers, pipefitters, electricians, operating engineers |
| Structure and site work | Concrete, steel and construction logistics | Concrete specialists, ironworkers, truck drivers, operating engineers |
| Connectivity and protection | Fiber connections and security systems | Engineers and other specialized contractors; AGC does not assign every task to a specific occupation in its summary |
These trades also work in power, manufacturing and other infrastructure construction. A large data-center project can therefore compete with other projects for workers and subcontractors even if the overall construction market is not uniformly busy. The pressure is likely to be most visible where major projects overlap with a limited local pool of experienced workers; the national employment figures do not identify which communities face the tightest conditions.
Is there a shortage of electricians for data centers?
The strongest current evidence is about employer-reported difficulty and competition, not a national headcount of missing electricians. In the AGC and NCCER Workforce Survey, conducted in July and August 2026, 1,830 people from firms of varied types and sizes responded to at least one portion. Among respondents who had performed construction work on a data-center project in the previous 12 months—a group representing 28% of survey respondents—58% said data-center projects increased competition for skilled workers, while 49% said they increased wage pressure. Within that same data-center-project group, 37% named worker or subcontractor availability as their biggest challenge in pursuing or delivering the work.
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The survey also points to a broader hiring problem. Among respondents with hourly craft openings, 87% said those jobs were as hard or harder to fill than a year earlier. Half of all respondents said available candidates lacked required skills, certificates or licenses. These are employers’ reports about candidates, not an independent assessment of qualifications or a count of unfilled electrician jobs specifically.
So, the evidence supports saying that data-center construction adds competition for skilled trades—including electrical workers—but it does not establish a single national number for how many electricians are missing, or show that every local market has an electrician shortage.
How much are labor shortages contributing to construction delays?
In the 2026 AGC/NCCER survey, 42% of respondents said shortages of their own employees or their subcontractors’ employees had delayed projects. Shortages were the most commonly cited cause of delay in that survey. Overall, 74% said they had experienced at least one significant project delay in the prior year, but that figure includes delays from causes other than labor availability. The survey describes participating employers’ experiences; it is not a national census of projects and does not show that data centers caused all reported shortages or delays.
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For data-center project work specifically, the survey’s subgroup figures show that labor availability is one reported challenge alongside heightened worker competition and wage pressure. They do not establish how many projects were delayed by data-center-related hiring or how much time any delay added.
Are construction jobs and data-center operations jobs the same?
No. Building a facility is project-based work performed by construction contractors and subcontractors. Once it is running, a data center also needs technical facilities and operations staff to maintain the site and its systems. The Census employment series counts data-center workers broadly, rather than isolating construction occupations, so it should not be used as a proxy for the number of people building new facilities.
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Uptime Institute’s 2025 global data-center survey and analysis distinguishes these labor pools. It says operators often develop operations staff internally, while skilled trades workers are commonly recruited with experience from utilities, manufacturing or industrial facilities. Uptime also warns that experienced operations managers’ retirement could leave fewer people available to train junior staff. That concern applies to operations staffing and knowledge transfer; it is not a measured count of construction vacancies.
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Why might the pressure persist as construction demand changes?
Demand can be strong for particular projects and skills even when other parts of construction soften. AGC chief economist Ken Simonson described that contrast at the release of the 2026 workforce survey: “The need for people to work on new data centers is keeping labor conditions tight even as demand for many other types of projects remains relatively soft.” This is an explanation of the association’s assessment, not proof that data centers are the cause of every tight labor market.
Uptime Institute assesses that denser facilities built for generative AI are likely worsening shortages in electrical and mechanical skills because larger and more numerous sites require power distribution and cooling infrastructure. That is an industry survey’s analysis of a mechanism, not a quantified forecast of how many workers AI-related construction will require.
There is also a wider energy-workforce context. The International Energy Agency’s World Energy Employment 2025 examines global energy jobs and occupation-level skill requirements, including needs through 2035 under IEA scenarios. More than 700 energy firms, trade unions and educators responded to the IEA’s Energy Industry Employment Survey used in that report. The IEA material helps explain why data-center power demand can overlap with needs elsewhere in the energy workforce; it is not a global count of data-center labor shortages.
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What are employers and policymakers doing about the workforce gap?
Employers responding to the 2026 AGC/NCCER survey reported raising pay and expanding recruitment and development efforts. More than eight in ten firms said they increased hourly craft and salaried base pay as much as or more than in the previous year. Thirty-six percent initiated or increased training and professional-development spending. Nearly half increased online recruiting activity, and nearly half increased engagement with high schools, colleges or career and technical education institutions. These figures describe reported actions; the survey does not establish which approaches have improved hiring or retention.
Other proposals focus on building the pipeline over time. Uptime Institute recommends greater collaboration with local trade schools to expand the supply of electricians and similar workers. A 2025 U.S. Senate hearing record discussing AI infrastructure includes recommendations to expand registered electrician apprenticeships, training centers, high-school industrial arts and community-college training for electricians and pipefitters.
In that hearing, a witness estimated that the United States would need to recruit and train half a million new electricians over the next decade to meet growing electricity needs. That is the witness’s estimate in testimony, not an independently verified government projection or a data-center-only workforce target. Apprenticeships and education partnerships are plausible routes to more skilled workers, but the cited sources do not establish that any one intervention will close the gap on a particular timetable.
What the shortage figures do—and do not—tell you
- Employment growth is not a construction headcount. Census data show growth in broad U.S. data-center employment through 2023, not how many tradespeople are needed to build facilities.
- Survey percentages describe respondents. The 2026 AGC/NCCER results reflect participating employers; data-center competition and wage figures apply only to respondents who had done data-center construction in the prior year.
- Hiring difficulty is not the same as a measured vacancy. Reports about hard-to-fill jobs, candidate qualifications, project delays and wage pressure capture different aspects of labor conditions.
- Regional conditions vary. National growth and spending figures cannot show whether a particular town has enough electricians, subcontractors or training capacity for its project pipeline.
- Energy workforce estimates are not data-center counts. The IEA’s energy employment work and the electrician estimate made in Senate testimony provide context, but neither directly measures data-center construction labor demand.
The most defensible reading is that a rapidly expanding data-center buildout is adding pressure to selected trades and local labor pools, particularly where it overlaps with other power and infrastructure projects. Employers report real competition, wage pressure and delays, but the evidence does not support treating the entire construction workforce as short-staffed or assigning every project delay to data centers.
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