It's funny how people complain about the rust belt dying and factories leaving rural communities and so on, then when someone wants to build something that can provide jobs and tax revenue, everyone complains.
How many people are employed at the average data center? A few dozen? Versus a steel mill, that’s nothing. A chicken plant in Nebraska closed down this last month. 3200 people lost their jobs. You think Meta will fill it with GPUs and the whole town will have jobs again?
Many more are employed while building it. And they will never stop building. It's modern version of rail. But instead of distances it will cover the area.
> Will local folks get those jobs to build the data center?
Yes. At some point the demand will be so high that imported workers won't suffice and local population will need to be trained and hired.
> And if so, what happens to those builders once the data center is built?
They are going to be moved to a new place where the datacenters will need to be built next. Mobility if the workforce was often cited as one of the greatest strengths of US economy.
So local people in town 1 who are getting these jobs to build the data center will then have to move to town 2 to build a data center there? What happens to the local people in town 2 who are also looking for construction jobs?
Local people in town 2 share the same fate that people in town 1 alread had. If there's not enough imported workers, from town 1 or elsewere people from town 2 will need to be trained and employed.
More and more data centers (and power sources) are going to be built at the same time so more and more workers will be needed. This is going to be THE job. I think there are going to be many similarities with the age when railroads were being developed. Hopefully with less worker deaths this time.
As if any taxes will be paid to the areas affected, and add to that the billions in taxes used to subsidize everything before a single cent is a net positive.
