Annual Salary of $1 Million to Grab Electricians: Meta Is So Desperate It Starts Its Own Trade School

The AI boom has shifted its bottleneck to construction sites, with a severe shortage of electricians and other tradespeople needed for data centers. McKinsey estimates that the US needs 130,000 additional electricians, 240,000 construction workers, and 150,000 construction supervisors between 2023 and 2030 for AI infrastructure alone. A single GPU rack consumes 120-140 kilowatts, ten times more than a standard server rack a decade ago, and AI data centers require complex power distribution and liquid cooling, driving demand for certified electricians, plumbers, and HVAC engineers. Microsoft president Brad Smith said the electrician shortage is the top obstacle to expanding data centers in the US. In response, Meta has allocated $115 million to a long-term construction worker training school with 5,000 initial students, offering free tuition, flights, housing, and stipends, and placing graduates in jobs after a four-week program. OpenAI partnered with North America's Building Trades Unions in March to secure longer-trained workers. The trade school enrollment among Gen Z has surged 1421% from 2017 to 2025, with 42% of Gen Z considering skipping college for trade training. Data centers are consuming electricity at a staggering rate, with global data center electricity consumption reaching 565 terawatt-hours in 2026, up 26.4% year-over-year, and AI servers consuming 31% of that despite being a small fraction of installed capacity. Electricity prices in data-center-dense areas have risen up to 267% compared to five years ago, and consumers from Illinois to Washington, D.C., have faced over $9.3 billion in additional electricity costs in the 12 months from June 2024. The construction workforce is project-based, leading to wage fluctuations, and there are concerns about what happens when these projects end.