Technology

He doesn’t mention residential wireman anywhere in the article. He’s quoting someone who notes that skilled labor is moving away from complex construction project, such as multi family, to data centers. Multifamily is in the commercial sector rather than residential.

There are not enough skilled electricians and other specialized trade workers for both data center projects and other complex construction, Basu said, such as apartment buildings, factories and health care facilities. AI data centers tend to be more lucrative for construction firms, which relegates anything else to a lower priority.

The quoted person does mention residential, but attributes the decline in residential building to things like material prices and other factors. Lumber has been high for quite sometime which really impacts residential as they rely on lumber heavily for beams and framing, whereas commercial uses metal for beams and framing.

Basu said that a decline in U.S. manufacturing of homes, offices and factories would probably occur even without the AI data center construction boom, because of factors including climbing costs for building materials, zoning restrictions, higher tariffs and stricter immigration policies. But he notes that AI data center demand is probably worsening chronic capacity shortages in construction.