![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/20260421-Texas-Electricians-RE-05.jpg\")
<\/p>\nAbilene builder Gene Lantrip is on the front lines of Texas\u2019 population boom, but a new force is making it harder to finish construction on homes. Data centers are poaching the electricians he needs to install light switches and wiring that power his duplexes.<\/p>\n
The state has added more than 2.6 million residents since 2020, bringing in a steady surge of workers and families who need homes. But Texas doesn\u2019t have enough electricians to meet the demands of two competing priorities: building the housing to meet the needs of a growing state and becoming a global leader in AI.<\/p>\n
The centers that drive AI technology require massive facilities to power and cool servers, making electricians critical from construction through long-term operations. Early industry projections show data centers projects will need thousands of licensed electricians, pulling from a limited labor pool. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s taken us two months longer to build the houses than what it did before the data centers were coming in,\u201d Lantrip, 69, said. \u201cThat\u2019s the downside.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Gene Lantrip stands outside one of his homes in south Abilene Tuesday April 21, 2026. Housing has become a concern in the community as data center workers and an upcoming expanded mission at Dyess Air Force Base mean a tighter supply of residential options. Ronald W. Erdrich for The Texas Tribune<\/p>\n
On the outskirts of Abilene, mega companies OpenAI, Crusoe and Oracle invested into a 4 million-square-foot AI data center, Stargate. It joins more than 300 data centers already operating in Texas with about 100 more projects planned.<\/p>\n
As tech companies rush to build data centers, they are drawing from the same talent that homebuilders rely on \u2013 and often come in with bigger pockets to pay. Between 45% and 70% of the entire budget for data center construction goes to electrical subcontractors, according to the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, a labor union that represents electricians. <\/p>\n
The data center in the Abilene area, for example, offers electricians double the wages his subcontractors can as officials aim to finish its construction by the end of the year, Lantrip said.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy subcontractors don\u2019t have the people. My electrician, he lost two of his lead men and several of his helpers to the data center,\u201d Lantrip said. \u201cOf course, the guys got to do good for their families.\u201d<\/p>\n
A strain on demand<\/p>\n
The rapid buildout of data centers means a critical strain on demand for electricians, in large part because that workforce is aging out.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe data center workforce impact begins with a truly large construction boom, but then tapers to a more specialized, smaller, longer term operational employment that does involve a lot of electrical and technician roles,\u201d said Mark Muro, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. \u201cThis is really going to stress those pipelines.\u201d <\/p>\n
National trends show roughly 20,000 electricians leaving the workforce each year, with 1 in 3 electricians between the ages of 50 and 70 and nearing retirement.<\/p>\n
Texas has about 71,000 electricians employed, according to federal labor data. Even as training programs expand, the pipeline cannot quickly adjust to this spike in demand.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe haven\u2019t done a good enough job of backfilling with new people coming in,\u201d said Scott Norman, the CEO of the Texas Association of Builders, referring to experienced workers retiring faster than new ones entering the trade.<\/p>\n
Becoming a licensed electrician requires years of apprenticeship and hands-on experience, which limits how fast new workers can be added. <\/p>\n
\u201cYou can\u2019t just snap your finger and say, in six months, we\u2019re going to have all these other electricians,\u201d Norman said. <\/p>\n
Recruiting across state lines<\/p>\n
Texas is loosening licensing requirements to bring workers from across state lines. <\/p>\n
Since November, the state has made it easier for electricians from Iowa, Alabama and Arkansas to transfer their licenses to Texas. The idea is that instead of requiring experienced workers from other areas to start over with testing and certification, Texas could quickly tap into an existing pool of trained electricians through a reciprocity agreement with those states.<\/p>\n
\n![\"Scotty](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/20260421-Texas-Electricians-RE-06.jpg\")
Scotty Wristen, an Abilene electrician, wires a fuse box in a new south Abilene home on April 21, 2026. Wristen has taken to recruiting young people as apprentices in his industry in response to the Abilene DC1 data center depleting the labor pool of local electricians. \u201cI train anybody I can get. We hire them, get them an apprentice card, and start their time on it,\u201d he said. Ronald W. Erdrich for The Texas Tribune\n<\/p>\n
State lawmakers last year sought to expand such partnerships, directing the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation to maximize reciprocity agreements with other states, so long the level of training and testing is comparable.<\/p>\n
Cameron Dodd, a journeyman electrician and the political director of the Austin chapter of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, said it\u2019s too early to see the effects. Still, he\u2019s optimistic that broadening eligibility will attract experienced workers who can step directly onto job sites, particularly for large, labor-intensive projects such as data centers and industrial developments. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re trying to recruit more folks who are ideally already licensed\u2026All the baby boomers and older electricians are going to retire,\u201d Dodd said. \u201cThe reciprocity agreements, that should help.\u201d<\/p>\n
Various programs within the state are upping their efforts as well. For example, Texas State Technical College aims to grow its programs that train students in electrical skills. Its college officials are advertising the opportunity and higher wages that come with this workforce at job fairs.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, smaller builders are feeling the strain. For them, competing for a shrinking pool of electricians often means delaying projects or taking on the cost of training themselves. <\/p>\n
Scotty Wristen, the owner of WE Electric in Abilene, lost five workers to the data centers. He can only afford to pay employees $20 an hour. The data centers outmatch him at $35 an hour, in addition to overtime and per diem benefits, he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cSome of them were guys that I\u2019ve had for eight years, five years. They came, they got trained, and they left to go out there,\u201d Wristen said. \u201cI don\u2019t blame them. \u2026 It\u2019s less strenuous work but more time on the clock, or more money to take home to the family.\u201d<\/p>\n
Wristen tried to get trained electricians on board. But after dozens of students visited his job sites with their teachers, none came back for a job, he said.<\/p>\n
To fill the gap, Wristen is hiring teens as apprentices right out of high school.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re new. They don\u2019t even have a set of tools,\u201d Wristen said. \u201cIt\u2019s usually about four or five months of hell where we have little mistakes that cost us time and money. It\u2019s fixable. \u2026 And once they are trained in it, you don\u2019t have those little deals anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Texas Tribune partners with Open Campus on higher education coverage.<\/p>\n
Disclosure: The Texas Association of Builders has been a financial supporter of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune\u2019s journalism. Find a complete\u00a0list of them here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Abilene builder Gene Lantrip is on the front lines of Texas\u2019 population boom, but a new force is…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":269581,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[6040,100409,100410,5304,918,451,287,25702,1564,27,68641,29,293,28,6748],"class_list":["post-269580","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-abilene","tag-career-colleges","tag-career-pathways","tag-data-centers","tag-economy","tag-energy","tag-politics","tag-population-growth","tag-state-government","tag-texas","tag-texas-growth","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-legislature","tag-texas-news","tag-well-b-homepage"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/269580","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=269580"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/269580\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/269581"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=269580"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=269580"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=269580"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}