Meta announced Monday that it is launching a new free program to train U.S. workers for data center construction jobs.
The technology giant has pledged to invest $115 million in the first year of the initiative, dubbed “America’s Workforce Academy,” which will include a four-week training program and guaranteed job offers for graduates of the program. The program will begin in Indiana, Louisiana, Ohio and Texas in 2026.
Meta is teaming up with multiple groups to launch the effort, including the National Urban League, the Associated Builders and Contractors (ABC), CBRE, the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, STRIVE, Boone County Economic Development Corporation, Richland Parish Chamber of Commerce, Workforce Solutions Borderplex and the Ohio Chamber of Commerce, according to the announcement.
The training program’s main goal is to help give individuals who want to pursue careers in construction “the chance to achieve the American dream,” ABC President and CEO Michael Bellaman told the Daily Caller News Foundation in a Thursday interview.
“I think it’s an unbelievable opportunity,” Bellaman said. “It’s just incredible. You know, the construction industry is a phenomenal industry where you can learn multiple crafts, you can learn how to lead, you can learn how to run your own company, and become a job creator, and to provide these individuals with no prior experience, an opportunity to get upskilled, and onboarded in 200 hours of classroom, and [also] hands on training so that they can be a valued team member and a crew for a construction company that’s a Meta partner, and make an unbelievable wage and begin an unbelievable career.”
“Obviously there’s been a significant shift, I think, within the last few years [with] people making a choice to not go to college, and to learn a skill, and to be able to come into the industry and learn these skills, these competencies, and build on a craft professional career and add multiple [new] skills, become a supervisor, become a leader. It’s just fantastic,” he added.
“The AI revolution is bringing change but also historic opportunities,” Meta President and Vice-Chairman Dina Powell McCormick said in a statement provided to the DCNF. “Skilled workers electrified rural America one pole at a time. They manned the factories that built the arsenal that won World War II.”
“Now a new generation will pour the foundations and lay the fiber that secures American strength in this new age,” McCormick continued.
Just days after Meta’s announcement, Google similarly pledged on Thursday to commit $50 million to help train over 300,000 skilled trade workers nationwide, Axios first reported. Global asset manager BlackRock announced in March that it was launching a $100 million “philanthropic initiative” aiming to “expand economic opportunity and power the next generation of America’s skilled trades workers.”
The U.S. is also facing worsening skills shortages. An estimated 2.1 million skilled trades jobs in the nation could go unfilled by 2030, with potential economic losses hitting $1 trillion annually, according to the Department of Education.
Recent polling suggests that many Americans are concerned about losing their jobs to AI. A Gallup survey released in May shows that 7 in 10 Americans oppose constructing AI data center projects in their area, including 48% who are strongly opposed, compared to just 7% of respondents who said they are strongly in favor of such projects.
Some individuals have raised concerns about AI data centers’ significant energy and water consumption. Data center proponents have maintained that they will help create new jobs and provide other economic benefits.
The U.S.’ 4,149 active and 2,788 planned data centers are expected to create 5.4 million temporary and permanent jobs and generate $27 billion in new tax revenues over the next decade, according to a December 2025 report from the American Edge Project.
Earlier in June, Meta said it would lay off over 2,000 employees in California, including 2,200 at its Menlo Park headquarters and 74 in Playa Vista, the Los Angeles Times reported.
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