In Ireland, for 22% of total electricity, data centers provide 3,300 jobs
There are about 2,800,000 employed in Ireland.
For every 1% of Irish electricity, data centers provide 150 jobs
In the rest of the economy, for every 1% of electricity, 35,897 jobs are provided.
Figure of 3,300 jobs for 22% electricity came from Friends of the Earth webinar
Virginia Tax Revenue Losses to Data Centers Soar to $1.6 Billion for FY25
https://goodjobsfirst.org/virginia-tax-revenue-losses-to-data-centers-soar-to-1-6-billion-for-fy25/
Artificial Jobs: The Illusion of Big Tech’s Data Center Employment Claims
https://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/RB_2601_DataCenterJobs.pdf
What Happens When Data Centers Come To Town?
https://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/items/3a44f3bc-0a8a-4dd7-87fc-ce43e7032786
Big Tech Promised Jobs. Cities Gave Millions. Where Are the Workers?
https://www.businessinsider.com/data-centers-tax-subsidies-jobs-ohio-2025-5
Michigan legislature extends tax breaks for data center that brought only 2.6% of promised jobs
https://www.michigancapitolconfidential.com/news/legislature-extends-tax-breaks-for-data-center-that-brought-only-2-6-of-promised-jobs
That's the same project for France, with Macron.
@gerrymcgovern
trickle up economy
@gerrymcgovern What a striking set of stats! Do you have a source URL?
@jerclarke Saw it at a Friends of the Earth webinar
https://www.friendsoftheearth.ie/act/no-more-data-centres/
But I've often seen this basic figure for Irish data centers before, although the government did really try and hide the numbers.
@gerrymcgovern are you counting the data centres that run the IC fabs?
@ColmDonoghue The figures come from a Friends of the Earth webinar
https://www.friendsoftheearth.ie/act/no-more-data-centres/
But these basic figures have been around for years. Data centers everywhere are among the most awful employers. Nothing worse for a community than having a data center set up in it.
@gerrymcgovern
In what universe are Ai data centers a good investment?
Other than creating a scaffold of lies for the next "big thing" that makes mega dollars for already morbidly rich exploiters of other people's efforts, what IS Ai's value proposition?
#Technology #Ai #ROI #Investment
Jun 10, 2026, 10:14 PM@gerrymcgovern obviously the solution is to build as many power plants as possible. 🫣
Jun 10, 2026, 10:29 PM@gerrymcgovern I'm sure that it is not only that any single data-centre location, itself, does not employ very many workers on site but, also that they contribute in a very direct way to destroying employment broadly. Not to mention competing against the population directly for vital resources.
Whether this persists after the race to the plateau concludes is anyone's guess.
Buen argumento de de@gerrymcgovern@mastodon.green
Aplicado a #Aragón:
Consumo estimado GWh:
- #CentrosDeDatos: 437¹
- Industria siderúrgica: 2132²
Afiliadas³:
- Infraestructura informática, tratamiento de datos, hosting y otras: 167
- Industria y Energía: 4346
Empleadas/GWh:
- centros de datos: 0,4
- siderurgia: 2
Fuentes:
¹ ElPeriodicoDeAragón 11/3/2026:
10659 x (1 - 1,028/1,072)
² grupoase.net 1/8/2024: 20%
³ IAEST 5/2026
@noessequiaessaqueo @tunubesecamirio
#IA #AI #datacenters
Titular:
"Los centros de datos de Aragón generan 5 veces menos empleos por GWh que cualquier otra industria"
@gerrymcgovern And THAT rate isn't good enough for the #TechBros to relent, and let the 99% earn a decent wage and living.
Waiting for nanobot drones to detech them...
@gerrymcgovern Data centres are to buildings and computers what Starship is to rocket launchers. A shit ton of pollution, gargantuan amounts of hot mess, and obnoxiously oversized, all while providing absolutely nothing of any value whatsoever.
@syulang @gerrymcgovern Which reminds me of that scene in Shrek when he and Donkey turn up at the gates to the Prince's town and EVERYTHING is outsized and 'in your face' and Donkey says about someone overcompensating...
@gerrymcgovern
The numbers sound plausible. Can you link to sources that back these up?
@alterelefant i was watching a Friends of the Earth webinar, The Cost of Data Centres in Ireland. I've seen these basic figures before
@alterelefant I was watching a Friends of the Earth webinar
https://www.friendsoftheearth.ie/act/no-more-data-centres/
@gerrymcgovern
That looks like an interesting resource. Thank you for sharing.
Jun 11, 2026, 5:33 AM@gerrymcgovern maybe Ireland can use some of that 22% to deploy AI Tutors to help the next generation sort out the inequity
@urlyman On tech, Starmer gets his advise from that war criminal, and Big Tech is surely pulling his strings.
@urlyman @gerrymcgovern There's a sweaty pallor and nervous fidget about Starmer here that makes him look like a hostage reading a script given to him by his captors.
Jun 11, 2026, 11:33 AM@atomless heh!
Nice to see you James :)
@urlyman Thanks Jonathan! Likewise. :)
@gerrymcgovern I gather that electricity in Ireland is relatively expensive and I wonder if that is going to push data centres to other countries despite the tax incentives.
@Workshopshed The most expensive in Europe and made that way by data center demand. Data centers are a threat on multiple levels.
Jun 11, 2026, 6:25 AM@gerrymcgovern the more I hear about AI the more I want the bubble to burst
@gerrymcgovern but think about the shareholders !
@gerrymcgovern I get what you're saying but I feel it's not really a good metric because datacentres aren't only jobs for the people that work in them, they're small parts of basically every computer based worker's job. The use of AI is grossly over consumptive but these numbers are a bit misleading about what's actually happening
@http_error_418 The same could be said for lots of infrastructure. Having worked in data for decades, I know that at least 90% of data stored in data centers is junk. Also, with AI, jobs will be destroyed. So, data centers are becoming job destroying machines.
@gerrymcgovern that last part I certainly don't have the slightest dispute with
@gerrymcgovern Well, meat markets use 100% of beef, and provide a fraction of 1% of jobs.
And airlines use 100% of commercial jet fuel, again employing very few workers overall.
@gerrymcgovern AI -
Being put under surveillance and control by the robots of our billionaire overlords - and all it costs is our air and our water and the survival of our planet.
@gerrymcgovern Probably not much of an issue when you are surrounded by water...
Inlanders do not have same options when ground water can be evaporated within a very short time line and made undrinkable when humans need 97% water to exist in body ...
@Lstn2urmama4 It's an issue in many ways. Data centers have helped make Irish electricity the most expensive in Europe
Ireland's data centre energy drain: How Big Tech added €1.4bn to household electricity bills, Rosi Leonard, The Journal, 2026
https://www.thejournal.ie/readme/data-centres-and-climate-7052694-May2026/
@gerrymcgovern What the heck happened to solar and wind use ???
@Lstn2urmama4 The explosive growth of data centers way outpaces solar and wind roll out. And anyway, wind and solar bring with them a whole host of problems, as they wipe out entire ecosystems and Indigenous communities in the Global South.
@gerrymcgovern there are issues as ability to get what is needed for solar as well have been using some for last 50 +years and still not heard of where window glass for solar has been found in UK now for many years as homes there have been built using it that way ...
Data centers are so expensive the top 4 may have to take a long time to recover money from building them
These are great, tangible, meaningful comparisons...
This is such a good clear way to make the jobs argument.
If you've ever done data center ops you know this intuitively but might not have the economic numbers.
Everything about data center construction is already optimized to the pinnacle of extraction. Heads of IT Operations deeply resent OPEX they want service contracts, capex they can write off on taxes for depreciation, and as few bodies as possible. They will put 1 engineer on 75% travel and expose them to constant radiation just to avoid the expense of having skilled personnel on site.
Some might think I'm exaggerating this novel problem, but it's so ubiquitous and old it is the plot of S1 of the well-researched "Mister Robot": data center gets hacked and they put Elliot on a plane because they only pay one person to actually know what to do - Elliot is a peon that works for an outsourced firm on a security service contract.
@Rtzq0 Good information here. The very DNA and culture of the data center industry is extractivist, colonialist, imperialist. They have absolute contempt for the local communities in which they locate, and are run like high security prison camps.
@gerrymcgovern
The one upside to this strategy is they are so lean they don't have enough local scabs.