Data Centers: Threats to Water and Energy Bills

Reality: Studies have shown that typically only a handful of people end up with permanent data center jobs.

A Wall Street Journal article titled “The AI Data-Center Boom Is a Job-Creation Bust,” the chief executive of data-center operator Patmos Hosting shares that, “Data centers have rightly earned a dismal reputation of creating the lowest number of jobs per square foot in their facilities.”

In fact, a January 2026 study by Food and Water Watch showed that as few as 23,000 people worked in the data center industry in 2024. Given that about 4,000 data centers were operational in 2024, that’s an average of approximately six people being employed per data center facility.

A 2025 Business Insider analysis by Hannah Beckler found that even the largest data centers employ fewer than 150 permanent workers, with some employing as few as 25 people – far fewer than many claim they will employ. 

Reality: Few data centers ever hire as many people as they claim, instead taking sweetheart tax breaks for little in return.

It’s a country-wide trend: data centers get huge tax breaks to create jobs and fail to deliver.

• The Switch Inc. data center in Michigan received tax breaks in 2015 after promising to create 1,000 jobs in 10 years. But by 2022, the company had only hired 26 people, and those 26 jobs’ average wage was below $38,000 per year. 
• Good Jobs First has pointed to incidents where a data center was given millions in subsidies in exchange for job creation. When fewer jobs were created than was expected, it calculates out to $6.4 million in subsidies per job.
• According to information from the Virginia Economic Development Partnership, data centers in Virginia generate just one permanent job for every $13 million invested.
• CNBC reported that a Microsoft data center in Illinois received more than $38 million in state sales tax exemptions in 2021, but created only 20 permanent jobs.

Reality: Data center developers are going to use the most economic construction means available. 

According to a recent op-ed by Ayana Gray (Great Falls resident and graduate of Cambridge in Ethics of AI, Data, and Algorithms), the controversial Butte Sabey project has made big claims about the 600 temporary construction jobs that it will create.

Gray writes, “Sabey has stated that they have met with local unions and they prioritize local hiring where possible, but it is worth noting that Sabey operates their own construction company. Even the Butte-Silver Bow Committee has considered that there exists the possibility that outside construction labor could be brought in, potentially putting strain on rental equipment markets, which would be to the detriment of local construction companies.”

Communities must get promises from data center developers in legally-binding contracts – otherwise, there is nothing to hold them to these promises.

Reality: Generative AI may replace human workers at rates that are difficult to replace.

For-profit companies are incentivized to increase profit margins for shareholders. One way to do that is to cut the workforce. If companies can convince their workforce to train its own replacement and increase profit margins, there’s no reason they wouldn’t do that. Elon Musk has claimed AI and robotics will ultimately “replace all jobs,” which would be great in a society that provides for everyone’s needs; however, in our current systems, people need money to buy food and pay bills. 

Food and Water Watch reports, “Speculations on U.S. job displacement vary wildly, from 1 to 2 percent over the next 20 years to one quarter by 2030… Job displacement may already be occurring. Jobs reliant on analytical or administrative skills — such as financial clerks or data entry keyers — are more exposed to AI than those reliant on hands-on mechanical skills, such as nurses or maintenance workers. Younger tech workers may be disproportionately impacted, facing increased unemployment rates compared to other sectors and ages. If AI reduces entry-level roles, there is a risk that this next generation of workers will not be trained, leading to alienation. Moreover, tech companies are already laying off workers to focus on AI growth. In October 2025, Amazon attributed 14,000 planned layoffs to a need to ‘organize more leanly’ in order to fully invest in AI, following the moves of other companies like Salesforce, Duolingo, and Lufthansa.… AI has become a convenient scapegoat for companies looking to lay off workers, offloading the responsibility onto faceless technology.”