Meta to launch skilled trades program academy to train and create jobs in AI data center construction

Tech and AI giant Meta is spending $115 million to create a free training program for skilled tradespeople, offering guaranteed jobs to graduates who will help in building the company’s expanding network of AI data centers all over the United States.

The program, labeled the America’s Workforce Academy (AWA), will pilot this year in Louisiana, Ohio, Indiana, and Texas, according to a company announcement on June 8. Meta has called the budding program the largest private-sector commitment to skilled trades training with a job guarantee in U.S. history.

Meta academy offers plenty

Graduates will receive two credentials after training with the academy, with one from the National Center for Construction Education and Research (NCCER) and an America’s Workforce Certificate, all without paying a single dollar. Both certificates are designed to be portable across employers and industry sectors.

The program will also provide generalist training for data center technicians. Graduates will fill full-time roles with general contractors working on Meta’s data center buildout, although there were no specific numbers mentioned regarding positions available and possible hiring firms involved.

The Associated Builders and Contractors (ABC), one of Meta’s partners on the initiative, has also mentioned that it expects to train thousands of people over the course of the program.

$115 million only the beginning

The $115 million first-year investment is a fraction of the $600 billion Meta has pledged to spend on U.S. infrastructure and jobs over the next three years, according to Reuters.

This level of spending is tied to CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s push to build massive data centers powering AI assistants that can act autonomously on behalf of users, which Zuckerberg himself has called “personal superintelligence.”

Meta‘s own prior training effort, a fiber installation program called Level-Up, got 35,000 applications in its first seven days. The U.S. labor market needs hundreds of thousands of electricians, welders, plumbers, fiber technicians, and other tradespeople, and these initiatives are intentionally directed at closing that workforce gap, the company said.

However, ironically, data centers historically tend to generate far more temporary construction work than permanent employment.

A Meta data center in Texas where the company broke ground last year is projected to have more than 1,800 workers on site during peak construction but roughly only about 100 jobs once operational, Reuters noted. A similar AI facility in Oklahoma follows the same pattern.

Partners for AWA initiative

Meta is working with the National Urban League, the ABC, and CBRE on the program. Community partners include the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, STRIVE, and regional economic development organizations in the four pilot states, according to the announcement.

“Workers are actually paid to learn. There is zero cost to them, no college debt and a fast certification, with a guaranteed job on the other end,” mikeroweWORKS Foundation CEO Mike Rowe said in Meta’s announcement.

National Urban League President Marc H. Morial also framed the initiative in equity terms, saying AWA “opens doors, particularly for communities who historically have been excluded from opportunity.”

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