It is pointed out that 'a large number of jobs will be created in the data center,' but the actual number of job openings is small and the local area will not benefit.

Operating a huge data center requires a certain amount of manpower, but the number of jobs that were projected when the data center was planned has not been created locally, tech news site Rest of World points out.

Microsoft and Google overstate job creation at Chile data centers - Rest of World

Rest of World looked at the case of Chile, a South American country experiencing sluggish economic growth and an unemployment rate above 8% since 2023.

There are 67 data centers in operation or planned in Chile, most of which are located in the metropolitan area of Santiago. According to the labor information office in Quilicula, one of these data centers, there are job postings from local companies, but no job offers from the global companies that operate data centers. Alexandra Arancibia, a member of the local city council, told Rest of World, 'The work (in data centers) is highly specialized and cannot be done locally.'

Rest of World's research into 17 data center construction projects that have undergone environmental assessments since 2012 revealed that the number of full-time jobs was 'less than 1,547.' The average number of job openings was 90, with as few as 20. According to local activists and former workers, most of the jobs were security and cleaning positions.

According to InvestChile, the Chilean government's investment agency, 28 global companies plan to build data centers in 32 locations by 2028. These data centers are expected to create 909 full-time jobs over a 30-year period.

In June 2025, Microsoft announced that it would create more than 81,000 jobs as it builds a new data center in Chile. The figure was based on an economic model developed by consulting firm IDC, which assumes that increased cloud usage leads to growth and, as a result, increased hiring.

However, Diego Cortes, an economist at Colombia's National University of Education, points out that 'this model assumes that companies will save on IT costs and reinvest the savings in hiring, which is not necessarily the case.' He adds that the IT jobs created may be filled by foreign workers rather than locals, and that 'it is unlikely to bring any real benefits to the local economy.'