Meta is launching a $115 million training program for blue-collar workers to build AI data centers

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Meta is launching a $115 million training program for blue-collar workers to build AI data centers

Graduates of the company's America's Workforce Academy will be guaranteed employment at a Meta data center construction site

By Cris Tolomia, Quartz Media

Published 23 hours ago

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Meta $META -0.14% is launching a $115 million program to train skilled trade workers for data center construction jobs, the company said Monday. Graduates of the company's America's Workforce Academy will be guaranteed employment at a Meta data center construction site, and participation costs nothing.

Participants who complete an online application receive scholarships, travel, housing, and living expense stipends, the company said. Training covers career readiness, safety, core skills, and hands-on craft instruction. The program will pilot in Baton Rouge, Louisiana; Columbus, Ohio; Indianapolis; and Houston.

According to Reuters, graduates who receive job offers will be hired as full-time employees by general contractors involved in building out Meta's data center network. The company has not disclosed the number of openings or the identities of the contracting firms. Program partner Associated Builders and Contractors, a construction industry trade group, has said it anticipates the initiative will put thousands of people through training.

Meta is partnering with real estate and investment firm CBRE and the Associated Builders and Contractors on the program, along with community partners including the National Urban League, the US Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, and regional workforce organizations, the company said.

"America's Workforce Academy is our commitment to building that workforce with the same ambition and long-term thinking we bring to the technology itself," Rachel Peterson, Meta's vice president of data centers, said in a statement. "America needs hundreds of thousands of skilled tradespeople — electricians, mechanics, fiber technicians and more — and this program creates clear, accessible pathways into those careers."

The program follows Meta's earlier fiber installation training initiative, called Level-Up, which drew 35,000 applications in its first seven days, the company said. Associated Builders and Contractors has estimated that roughly 349,000 additional workers must enter the construction industry in 2025 just to keep pace with current demand, The Wall Street Journal reported.

Measured against the $600 billion Meta has committed to spending on U.S. infrastructure and jobs over the coming three years, the $115 million outlay is comparatively modest. The Hyperion facility in Richland Parish, Louisiana, which Meta has called its largest data center, is projected to span an area the company says would take up a substantial portion of Manhattan.

Meta agreed earlier this year to finance new power generation and transmission projects in Louisiana for the Richland Parish facility, with Entergy $ETR +1.43% Louisiana estimating roughly $2 billion in relief for ratepayers over two decades. Once a data center opens, the permanent workforce it requires is typically far smaller than the surge of construction workers needed to build it.