A Cloud on the Horizon for the Cloud: Data Centers’ Labor Shortage

Due to increasing demand for cloud storage and how much the storage capability impacts people’s daily lives, data center construction is booming and acquisitions are rising. As a case in point, Blackstone recently announced plans to buy QTS Realty Trust in a deal valued at about $10 billion, including the assumption of debt.

However, JLL reports that a global shortage of the skilled employees who run data center facilities is causing headaches. Operators are concerned that the competitive environment — which has them paying high salaries to poach facilities management staff — could interrupt their operations.

Half of data center operators surveyed by the Uptime Institute in 2020 said they were experiencing difficulties finding candidates for open positions. That compares to 38% in 2018. 

Data centers will need to hire 300,000 more staff by 2025, according to the Uptime Institute report, which said, “the lack of specialist staff will be an increasing concern for all types of data centers, from mega-growth hyperscale to small, private enterprise facilities.”

Although the shortage has been intensified by the digital transformations during the pandemic, the real issue lies in the high volume of facilities management staff reaching retirement age. Ahead is a further wave expected to retire in coming years, says JLL’s Bryon Price, global director, technical training. Meanwhile, younger generations receive less education in the trades and are less likely to take jobs in the rural areas where hyperscale centers are located.

Experts say the solution lies in a massive training effort to bring new workers into the field for high-demand roles such as technicians, analysts of power systems, control specialists and robotics managers. 

“The shortage is dire and data center operators’ stress levels are high,” Price says. “We had a client recently reach out to us in an attempt to get a handle on regional salary ranges for engineers because their staff are being poached left and right by co-locators and hyperscalers.” Price and his team have developed a training program to address these issues.

When experienced and qualified people are poached from an organization, it adds another level of difficulty to running operations, says Duy Tu, facilities engineering & operations manager at Intel.

It can take an experienced and knowledgeable technician many months or even years “to learn the systems of a critical environment because of the complexity in controls, redundancy and back-up capabilities,” he says.

“That knowledge and understanding is honed over many years solving the facilities problems,” says Tu. “When that experienced person walks out of the door, it usually leaves a huge gap in operational capabilities and exposes the organization to reliability risks.”

While data center staffing positions often list a high level of education as a prerequisite, not all roles genuinely demand such formal qualifications, Price says. 

Conversely, hiring inexperienced staff could lead to mistakes that take the cloud offline. For this reason, companies are investing in training programs. The Uptime study found that globally, the biggest employers are investing in more training and education, not just via internal programs but also by working with universities and technical schools.