The AI expansion is usually covered as a story about chips, power and capital spending. The electricians, carpenters and pipefitters who physically build these sites rarely appear in the models. Sean McGarvey, president of North America’s Building Trades Unions (NABTU), argues that this workforce can scale. The constraint sits with the companies: they need to bring the trades into planning early enough to have workers trained and placed when sites need them. That turns a labor shortage into a coordination problem.
McGarvey Calls Data Centers America’s Reindustrialization
McGarvey said the expansion of data center infrastructure is a big part of the growth of the middle class right now. He called it a new industrial revolution and the reindustrialization of America.
On capacity, he told CNBC: “We have 1600 training centers in the United States, we have over 300,000 people in our training programs. We spend $3 billion of our own money every year, and we can ramp that up to a million.”
NABTU represents 14 craft unions across the United States and Canada, per our editor’s brief.
Independent Reporting Confirms the Labor Crunch
The shortage is real and well documented. The New York Times reported on July 29, 2026 that AI companies are recruiting electricians and carpenters by the thousands. Quartz reported the same day that AI companies are spending $265 million to train electricians for data centers. On Tuesday, Fortune reported that a Google data center lead said skilled trade jobs are open across the U.S., while Business Insider reported the buildout is helping drive blue-collar job growth and construction spending.
A Colorado General Assembly research report notes that industry reports indicate the data processing demands of AI and related cloud services have driven new construction and upgrades of data centers. Total U.S. job openings stood at 7.08M in August 2026, down 3.5% from the prior month.
Which AI Partnerships Are Signed, Pending or Just Talks
Tense matters here. Axios reported on March 11, 2026 that OpenAI teamed up with the building trades to fuel compute expansion. Crypto Briefing reported on August 10, 2026 that BlackRock (NYSE:BLK | BLK Price Prediction) partnered with NABTU to align construction workers for data centers.
McGarvey referenced Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT), said a deal with Blackstone (NYSE:BX) would be announced very quickly, and described Google, owned by Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL), as a company the unions are talking to.
Labor Is Split on Data Centers, and the Segment Skipped It
Bloomberg Law reported on June 17, 2026 that labor unions are divided over data center construction and AI use. McGarvey speaks for a large organization, and his enthusiasm is one position within labor. CNBC asked on September 26, 2026 whether data center backlash could turn the blue-collar AI job boom into a bust.
Who Is Speaking and What He Wants
McGarvey leads an organization whose members get the work if the expansion speeds up. His capacity figures remain verifiable claims. He calls for banning imports of prefabricated data centers from China, and opposes state-level moratoriums in favor of local community decisions with transparency on environmental, power and water impacts.
What to Track as the Buildout Unfolds
McGarvey’s claim is testable. If the trades can scale once companies engage earlier, enrollment should rise from the 300,000 figure he cited, and more partnership announcements should follow the OpenAI and BlackRock arrangements. The Blackstone announcement he described as upcoming is the nearest checkpoint. Whether the Google talks become a formal agreement is the next. Those data points will show whether the bottleneck is truly planning lead time.