Mike Rowe says data center electricians earning $260K are getting ‘poached’ like pro athletes — no college degree required

The cost of a college education has skyrocketed — as has student loan debt — and graduates are often left with degrees that don’t translate into jobs. At the same time, white-collar professions are experiencing significant disruption in the era of AI (2).

On the other hand, data center electricians are earning around $260,000 a year, Rowe told Fox Business, citing a recent visit to a Texas-based data center (3).

There, he met three electricians, each under the age of 30 (1). While they had no student loan debt, “the most consequential component of that meeting was the fact that all three of them had been poached three times in the prior 18 months,” Rowe said. “It’s like the draft in the major leagues” (3).

The skilled trades are in high demand while simultaneously facing labor shortages. That, along with a changing attitude toward the trades among younger generations, are making these jobs look pretty attractive — and, even better, they’re relatively insulated from AI-related job cuts.

Rise of the trades

Youth unemployment rates in the U.S. increased to 9.5% in February, from 8.9% in January, according to data from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis (4).

At the same time, student loan debt now exceeds $1.8 trillion and the average student loan debt (including private loans) may be as high as $43,333, according to the Education Data Initiative (5).

But, while a lot of young graduates with degrees can’t find jobs, a lot of in-demand trades can’t find enough workers. McKinsey & Company says that annual hiring for skilled roles such as electricians, welders and diesel technicians “could be more than 20 times the projected annual increase in net new jobs from 2022 to 2032” (6).

Electricians, for example, are needed to build AI infrastructure, including data centers — and there just aren’t enough of them to meet growing demand.

It’s estimated that the U.S. will need about 300,000 new electricians in the next decade — and that’s above and beyond replacing about 200,000 electricians set to retire, according to Fortune (1). They aren’t just needed in data centers; they’re needed across the board, from hospitals to military bases and everything in between.

Electricians aren’t the only in-demand trade. Indeed, research from Randstad USA finds that the AI revolution is “triggering a demand in skilled trades that is now outpacing professional roles.” That includes robotics technicians (with job vacancies jumping 113.19%), HVAC engineers and general trades, including welders and construction specialists (7).

At the same time, many skilled trade workers are retiring, driving an even bigger need for talent. Indeed, Randstad reports that, for every 100 workers entering the trades, another 102 are exiting (7).

Training for a blue-collar career

More Gen Zers are considering the skilled trades. Not as a fallback, but as a career that offers stability, high pay and even the opportunity to run their own business.