As investment in digital infrastructure accelerates, access to skilled construction labor is emerging as another critical consideration for data center owners, developers, and investors. Data centers—and the power generation, transmission, substations, and other infrastructure that support them—are competing with other major projects for many of the same skilled workers.
That competition makes workforce planning increasingly important when considering site selection, contractor procurement, construction schedules, and broader development pipelines. Depending on the project and market, project labor agreements and other labor arrangements may provide tools for addressing workforce availability and labor relations, but there is no one-size-fits-all approach.
In our latest Insight, The Role of Labor Agreements in Digital Infrastructure Projects, we examine why owners and developers should consider labor strategy earlier in the digital infrastructure development process, and discuss how doing so can help preserve options as projects move from planning to construction.