Tech and AI giant Meta is spending $115 million to create a free training program for skilled traders, offering guaranteed jobs for graduates who will help build the company’s expanding network of AI data centers across the United States.
The program, called the American Workforce Academy (AWA), will be piloted this year in Louisiana, Ohio, Indiana and Texas, according to the company’s June 8 announcement. Meta has described the emerging program as the largest private sector commitment to skilled trades training with a job guarantee in U.S. history.
Meta Academy offers a lot
Graduates will receive two certifications after training at the academy, one from the National Center for Construction Education and Research (NCCER) and an American Workforce certification, all without paying a single dollar. Both certifications are designed to be transferable across employers and industry sectors.
The program will also provide general training for data center technicians. Graduates will fill full-time roles with general contractors working on Meta Data Center construction, although there are no specific numbers mentioned regarding the positions available and potential hiring companies involved.
Associated Builders and Contractors (ABC), one of Meta’s partners in the initiative, also said it expects to train thousands of people over the course of the program.
$115 million is just the beginning
The first-year investment of $115 million represents a small portion 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 efforts to build massive data centers that power artificial intelligence assistants that can act autonomously on behalf of users, what Zuckerberg himself has called “personal superintelligence.”
deadIts previous training effort, a fiber installation program called Level-Up, received 35,000 orders in its first seven days. The company said that the US job market needs hundreds of thousands of electricians, welders, plumbers, fiber technicians and other tradesmen, and that these initiatives are intentionally directed towards closing the workforce gap.
However, ironically, data centers have historically tended to generate much more temporary construction work than permanent employment.
A Meta data center in Texas, where the company began construction last year, is expected to have more than 1,800 workers on site during the peak of construction, but only about 100 jobs once it is up and running, Reuters male. A similar AI facility in Oklahoma follows the same pattern.
AWA Initiative Partners
Meta is working with the National Urban League, 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 leading states, according to advertisement.
“Workers are actually paid to learn. There’s no cost to them, no college debt and a quick degree, with a guaranteed job on the other end,” Mike Rowe, CEO of the mikeroweWORKS Foundation, said in the Meta announcement.
National Urban League President Marc Morial also framed the initiative in terms of equity, saying the AWA “opens doors, especially for communities that have historically been excluded from opportunity.”
