Meta announced an initiative to train workers for trades and skilled labor with a job guarantee.
Dubbed the America's Workforce Academy, Meta is powering the effort with $115 million in what it says is an "unprecedented fast track to a long-term career in a skilled trade."
Participants won't be charged while they learn and will be guaranteed full-time employment after successfully finishing training.
"The AI revolution is bringing change but also historic opportunities," Dina Powell McCormick, Meta's president and vice chairman, said in a statement. "Skilled workers electrified rural America one pole at a time. They manned the factories that built the arsenal that won World War II."
She added, "Now a new generation will pour the foundations and lay the fiber that secures American strength in this new age."
Meta says the effort is the "the largest private-sector commitment to the skilled trades with a job guarantee in American history."
America's Workforce Academy plans to launch pilot programs this year in Louisiana, Ohio, Indiana, and Texas.
Academy students will earn an industry-recognized credential from the National Center for Construction Education and Research, along with an America's Workforce Certificate intended to be portable across employers and industries.
Meta is developing the program with the National Urban League, Associated Builders and Contractors, and CBRE, a commercial real estate services and investment firm, as well as local workforce and business organizations in the four pilot states.
The announcement comes as technology companies race to build artificial intelligence infrastructure, including data centers, amid growing demand for skilled labor.
Meta said the U.S. labor market needs hundreds of thousands of fiber technicians, welders, plumbers, electricians, and other trades workers.
Rachel Peterson, Meta's vice president for data centers, said the company's expanding AI infrastructure requires a larger skilled workforce.
"The AI infrastructure we're building today requires an incredible workforce to make it a reality," Peterson said. "America needs hundreds of thousands of skilled tradespeople — electricians, mechanics, fiber technicians, and more — and this program creates clear, accessible pathways into those careers."
America's Workforce Academy builds on Meta's recently announced LevelUp Fiber Technician Pathway, a free four-week training program operated with CBRE to prepare workers for fiber technician jobs tied to data-center construction projects.
Meta said that program drew 35,000 applications in its first seven days.
The company operates or is building 27 data centers in the U.S. and launched LevelUp to help address a nationwide shortage of fiber technicians needed for AI-related infrastructure projects.
Actor and commentator Mike Rowe, CEO of the mikeroweWORKS Foundation, praised the academy's model.
"Workers are actually paid to learn. There is zero cost to them, no college debt, and a fast certification with a guaranteed job on the other end," Rowe said. "This is an important step in the right direction, and one that I hope other companies will be inspired to take."