Meta invests $115M to train electricians and welders for AI data center buildout

Meta funds skilled trades jobs program for AI data center buildout

NEW YORK, June 8 (Reuters) - Meta (META.O), opens new tab is investing $115 million to stand up a new training program for data center technician jobs, as the social media giant races to build the infrastructure to power its AI ambitions. The cost-free program, America's Workforce Academy, will end in guaranteed job offers to graduates, the company said in a statement. A Meta spokesperson said the program will provide generalist training for data center technicians. Jobs on offer will be full-time roles with general contractors working on Meta's data center buildout, she added. The spokesperson declined to specify how many positions would be available, with which firms and ⁠whether they would be union jobs. The Associated Builders and Contractors, a construction trade group, said it expects to train thousands of people over the course of the program. "The AI revolution is bringing change but also historic opportunities," said Dina Powell McCormick, Meta president and vice-chairman. The investment is a tiny slice of the $600 billion total Meta has pledged to invest in U.S. infrastructure and jobs over the next three years, as it builds out massive data centers to power CEO Mark Zuckerberg's aggressive bets on AI agent technologies. Zuckerberg has said his goal is to build AI assistants that can ⁠take action autonomously on their users' behalf to create apps, book appointments and complete transactions. He embarked on a big-ticket hiring spree last year to enable that vision for "personal superintelligence," offering $100 million signing bonuses to AI researchers from rival firms like OpenAI. More recently, he has been carrying out an AI-related restructuring inside Meta, laying ⁠off 10% of the workforce, or about 8,000 employees, and reassigning nearly as many others to new units aimed at improving the company's AI models and tools. In general, data centers tend to produce, opens new tab short-term construction booms and ⁠a small number of permanent jobs. For instance, a data center in Texas where Meta broke ground last year - one of the largest planned in the U.S. - is projected to have more than ⁠1,800 workers onsite at peak construction but to create about 100 jobs once operational. Another Meta data center in Oklahoma is expected to create more than 1,000 construction jobs at its peak and about 100 operational jobs upon completion. Reporting by Katie Paul; Editing by Daniel Wallis Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles., opens new tab

Meta launches program to train workers for data center jobs

Megan Cerullo is a New York-based reporter for CBS MoneyWatch covering small business, workplace, health care, consumer spending and personal finance topics. She regularly appears on CBS News 24/7 to discuss her reporting. Meta Platforms is offering free training for people to work in its data centers and guaranteeing them a job in a skilled trade after completing a five-week course. The technology giant announced on Monday that it is committing $115 million to the program, which is open to qualified veterans, career changers and others who want to enter the skilled trades. The initiative, dubbed "America's workforce academy," will first launch in Indiana, Louisiana, Ohio and Texas. Meta cited a nationwide shortage of fiber technicians, welders, plumbers, electricians and other skilled tradespeople needed to build data centers. "Every graduate will leave with a verified, industry-standard credential in high-demand fields such as electrical work, mechanical systems and plumbing," Meta said in a statement. Technology companies are racing to build data centers to power the development of artificial intelligence. 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. All data centers together are expected to create 4.7 million temporary construction jobs in the U.S., according to a 2025 report from the American Edge Project, a policy advocacy group formed by Meta that promotes tech industry interests. The group expects data centers to create roughly 700,000 permanent jobs to operate and manage the facilities. The rapid data center buildout has generated public opposition from some communities, which say it strains local power grids, raises environmental concerns and fails to boost local economies.

Meta and Mike Rowe launch $115 trade-training program that guarantees jobs to future welders, plumbers, electricians

Amid widespread anxiety that AI could wipe out jobs, Meta has announced America's Workforce Academy -- a $115 million training program for electricians, welders, plumbers and fiber technicians that guarantees each trainee a job upon graduation. "People want to be part of this economic transformation but they don't have a pathway," Dina Powell McCormick, President and Vice Chairman at Meta, told The Post. "The future is for technicians. The future is for electricians. The future is for welders. We really believe the future is for everyone." AWA is not only free, it covers training costs, transportation and certification fees in addition to paying attendees so they can focus on learning without taking on side jobs. The program launches later this year with pilot locations in Louisiana, Ohio, Texas and Indiana, where Meta expects to train thousands of workers in the first year. While graduates are guaranteed placement at a Meta construction site, they can take a job elsewhere. Mike Rowe, whose mikeroweWORKS Foundation has spent 18 years pushing private industry to close the skilled trades gap, said the need for highly-trained workers is critical for Americans to succeed in the artificial intelligence race against geopolitical adversaries like China. "We are in the race of our lifetime," Rowe told The Post. "It's like a space race -- we're having a Sputnik moment, and that moment is the realization that it all comes down to workforce." Powell McCormick also noted the historical parallels between America's past victories and today. "In World War II, the country came together to physically build the arsenal that defeated tyranny in the world," she said. "Today, these American workers are building the infrastructure that's going to allow American AI leadership. And that's critical right now." The scale of the need is staggering. Last month, BlackRock CEO Larry Fink projected $10 trillion would be required to create infrastructure necessary to fuel the AI boom. Rowe notes that number is "worth repeating because it's such an extraordinary number ... we actually have the money, we actually have the will, and the people in charge understand the stakes. We need the workforce." AWA is partnering with the National Urban League, Associated Builders and Contractors and CBRE on the program and expects others may join in future. "The reason it's called America's Workforce Academy is because it's bigger than Meta," Powell McCormick said. "We really hope we can expand this and work with other companies, other nonprofits. It's very important that women are part of it." Meta launched a similar program, LevelUp, earlier this year that offered 1,000 technician training slots in Ohio -- and received 35,000 applications in seven days. Like AWA, that program paid students to learn, which Powell McCormick said has been a key part of its success. "If you want to be an electrician, a plumber, a welder, a cyber technician, you have to get training. You have to get certified. You're not sure at the end of that if you're going to get a job," Powell McCormick explained. "If you are an Uber driver, a grocery clerk, a waitress like I was during college -- you're living paycheck-to-paycheck and you can't pay for [job] training. "It made us realize the demand is enormous."