{"id":7786,"date":"2026-06-03T00:52:19","date_gmt":"2026-06-03T00:52:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/?p=7786"},"modified":"2026-06-03T00:52:19","modified_gmt":"2026-06-03T00:52:19","slug":"data-center-ceo-is-hoping-for-a-skilled-trades-revival-in-his-lifetime-hes-recruiting-couch-dwelling-gen-z-with-two-weeks-of-vacation-on-day-one","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/?p=7786","title":{"rendered":"Data center CEO is hoping for a skilled-trades revival in his lifetime\u2014he\u2019s recruiting couch-dwelling Gen Z with two weeks of vacation on day one"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a great time to be in the skilled trades.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s according to Dan Peyovich, president and CEO of Dycom Industries, who says surging demand for the infrastructure behind AI\u2014from fiber networks to data centers\u2014is colliding with a persistent shortage of hands-on workers.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s no doubt there\u2019s a skilled trade shortage now,\u201d he said at Fortune\u2019s COO Summit in Scottsdale, Arizona on Tuesday.\u00a0<\/p>\n

And he\u2019s not wrong: A wave of data center construction, an aging workforce, and decades of education pipelines steering students toward four-year degrees have converged into what industry leaders increasingly describe as a structural labor gap. This year alone, the construction industry is facing workforce shortages of more than 550,000 unfilled positions.<\/p>\n

By 2030, an estimated 2.1 million skilled trades jobs in the U.S. could go unfilled\u2014with potential economic losses reaching $1 trillion annually\u2014according to the U.S. Department of Education.<\/p>\n

Peyovich\u2019s company sits squarely in the middle of that demand spike. Dycom Industries, which builds telecommunications and utility infrastructure, now employs about 20,000 skilled workers\u2014growth fueled in part by its $1.95 billion acquisition of a data center electrical contractor in 2025, as part of a broader push into AI-era infrastructure buildouts.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs we stand today, and for as far as we can see into the future, somebody still has to be out there working with their hands,\u201d Peyovich added in conversation with Fortune\u2019s Diane Brady.<\/p>\n

He speaks from experience. Early in his career, Peyovich worked as a carpenter before eventually moving into corporate leadership, drawn\u2014by his own admission\u2014to higher pay. But now, he\u2019s become an advocate for rebuilding the skilled trades pipeline at a time when interest in the field has lagged behind demand.<\/p>\n

Filling the skilled trades gap is proving easier said than done<\/p>\n

In an era where AI is increasingly reshaping, and in some cases threatening, traditional white-collar roles, hands-on work has emerged as a more stable and, in many cases, lucrative path for Gen Z workers seeking job security and upward mobility.<\/p>\n

Filling those roles, however, has proved easier said than done. Peyovich said decades of underinvestment in hands-on careers\u2014and the steady decline of early exposure to manual work\u2014have left today\u2019s labor pool less prepared than in previous generations.<\/p>\n

\u201cFilling the skilled workforce in today\u2019s world is not like it used to be,\u201d he said. \u201cYou don\u2019t have people that have a lot of outside-elements exposure or working on farms that you can pull in.\u201d<\/p>\n

Instead, he said, employers are increasingly starting with candidates who arrive with little to no hands-on experience.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re really taking\u2014I use the joke, but it\u2019s not really a joke because I have two college kids\u2014the kid playing XBOX at home on his couch,\u201d Peyovich said. \u201cAnd you\u2019re going to try to upskill them to be out in the elements, working with tools, working with customers, working in difficult situations.\u201d<\/p>\n

In order to attract talent, he said there\u2019s a need to go beyond salary, and boost company benefits. New hires at Dycom Industries automatically received two weeks of vacation on the first day\u2014something that new hires often have to accumulate.<\/p>\n

The talent gap has also pushed Dycom to invest directly in training. Earlier this year, the company announced plans to build a 49-acre immersive training campus in Georgia aimed at preparing a new generation of skilled trades workers.<\/p>\n

Major companies across industries have also ramped up efforts as labor shortages deepen. Earlier this year, BlackRock, the world\u2019s largest asset manager, committed $100 million to skilled trade training programs designed to reach 50,000 workers over the next five years. Home improvement retailer Lowe\u2019s similarly pledged $250 million over the next decade to train 250,000 skilled trades workers.<\/p>\n

But even as investment accelerates, the assumption that skilled trades are insulated from AI is starting to shift. Earlier in the Fortune conference, the head of research at Cognizant. Ollie O\u2019Donoghue, noted that while trades like plumbing will still require hands-on labor, the work around them is increasingly vulnerable to AI-driven change\u2014from diagnostics and planning to paperwork and scheduling.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019ll still need someone to turn the wrench, no doubt, but the actual process of plumbing and the value that\u2019s added will change a little bit,\u201d O\u2019Donoghue said. \u201cOne of the things is the massive integration of AI into manual work\u2014and as we start exploring things like physical AI, it makes things even more complicated.\u201d<\/p>\n

Peyovich echoed this view, adding that AI can be used to add value to hands-on work\u2014like improving safety and efficiency. But overall his hope is that the current moment is not a short-lived labor-market quirk, but a longer-term rebalancing of how society values education and work.<\/p>\n

\u201cI still hope that in my lifetime people really see [skilled trades] as being just as an attractive track as going through college,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

#Data #center #CEO #hoping #skilledtrades #revival #lifetimehes #recruiting #couchdwelling #Gen #weeks #vacation #day<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s a great time to be in the skilled trades. That\u2019s according to Dan Peyovich,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[245],"tags":[1379,3013,585,960,12500,13614,13732,569,877,3716,644,641,13422,310,13731,7265,481,13730,1384,3243,967,2337],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7786"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7786"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7786\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7786"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7786"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7786"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}