Pennsylvania sees data center job growth
Add Axios as your preferred source to
see more of our stories on Google.
Data center jobs in Pennsylvania increased by more than 48% from 2018 to 2024.
Why it matters: Companies, investors and governments are pouring tons of money and resources into data centers to help power AI and other next-gen tech, but there's debate over how many jobs they'll create and whether they're worth the energy required to run them.
Zoom out: Arkansas (+241.9%), South Dakota (+179.4%) and Georgia (131.5%) had the biggest increases in data center employment between the first quarters of 2018 and 2024, per the U.S. Census Bureau's Quarterly Workforce Indicators. Ohio had a nearly 56% increase in jobs.
Zoom in: Pennsylvania has 71 data centers, according to Data Center Map, about 42% of which are in the Pittsburgh area. Ohio has 175 data centers.
Yes, but: The raw job numbers are often relatively small.
- Pennsylvania had 13,452 data center jobs in Q1 2024. Ohio had 11,791.
- Arkansas had about 4,300. Georgia had about 25,000.
Zoom out: There were about 452,000 data center jobs nationally as of Q1 2024.
- That's less than half a percent of all U.S. private-sector jobs at the time.
Caveat: These numbers include data centers as well as web hosting and a few other related fields.
The bottom line: Major tech companies are spending unprecedented amounts of money on data centers, Axios' Michael Flaherty recently reported.
- But that money may not generate vast employment, unlike other big spending booms. Still, backers hope buildout will attract long-term investment from artificial intelligence and other tech companies.