Apr 22, 2026
As it plans cuts to its own workforce, Meta has unveiled a new training program for Americans to help the company’s data centers.
On April 20, Meta unveiled the LevelUp program (1), a multi-year partnership with real estate and infrastructure services firm CBRE. Meta says the program will provide free, rapid training to prepare thousands of Americans with no prior experience.
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For Meta, it’s a chance to solve an increasingly significant bottleneck as it competes in the fast-moving AI space. For people who have had trouble finding a job in the current economy, it’s a potential pivot. The course, which will start this summer, will train workers in four weeks for jobs Meta says are available across the country. Interested individuals can register to learn more at a dedicated CBRE website (2).
“The future of the AI revolution depends on a highly skilled US workforce — one that rises to the challenge of building and maintaining the complex systems that power innovation. Meta is proud to invest in technician training to support our ambitious infrastructure goals,” Dina Powell McCormick, Meta’s president and vice chairman, said in a statement (3).
Data center expansion
Meta is currently building 27 data centers across the United States. That has led to a shortage of construction workers who are qualified to set up the infrastructure in those facilities.
Meta called the fiber technician role as high paying several times in its announcement but didn’t offer any specific salary figures. Indeed estimates (4) the average base salary of a fiber technician in the U.S. at $48,638. Hyperscalers such as Meta, Google, Amazon and Microsoft have been known to pay more than three times (5) that amount in some cases.
There certainly appears to be significant short- and mid-term growth opportunity in this field. Data center operators last year spent over $750 billion, according to Bloomberg (6), with construction underway at 831 sites globally – and no indication of any immediate slowdown.
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Cost cutting
Meta’s focus on free training for fiber technicians comes as the company itself is on the precipice of significant staff reductions. It has reportedly targeted May 20 (7) for the first wave of layoffs. That round is expected to cut about 10% of its workforce, or roughly 8,000 employees, with additional layoffs planned later this year. In March, Reuters reported Meta was planning to reduce its global workforce by 20% or more (8) this year.
Pages dedicated to the LevelUp program do not state that newly-trained technicians will be hired directly by Meta or CBRE, though they do indicate graduates of the program will be brought on as contractors to help complete the data center buildouts. Meta also said that if relocation is required after closing the program, it will cover moving expenses.
Meta added that the skills learned will be transferable across the construction and data center industry, which, it says faces a shortage of nearly 350,000 workers.
Article Sources
We rely only on vetted sources and credible third-party reporting. For details, see our editorial ethics and guidelines.
Meta Data Centers (1); CBRE (2); Meta Newsroom (3); Indeed (4); Gigawatt Academy (5); Bloomberg NEF (6); Reuters (7); Reuters (8)
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Chris Morris is a veteran journalist with more than 35 years of experience, the majority of which were spent with some of the Internet’s biggest sites, including CNNMoney.com, where he was director of content development, and Yahoo! Finance, where he was managing editor. His work has also appeared on Fortune, Fast Company, Inc., CNBC.com, AARP, Nasdaq.com, and Voice of America, as well as dozens of other national publications.
