Data center CEO is hoping for a skilled-trades revival in his lifetime—he’s recruiting couch-dwelling Gen Z with two weeks of vacation on day one

It’s a great time to be in the skilled trades. That’s according to Dan Peyovich, president and CEO of Dycom Industries, who says surging demand for the infrastructure behind AI—from fiber networks to data centers—is colliding with a persistent shortage of hands-on workers. “There’s no doubt there’s a skilled trade shortage now,” he said at Fortune’s COO Summit in Scottsdale, Arizona on Tuesday. And he’s 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. By 2030, an estimated 2.1 million skilled trades jobs in the U.S. could go unfilled—with potential economic losses reaching $1 trillion annually—according to the U.S. Department of Education. Peyovich’s 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—growth 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. “As 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,” Peyovich added in conversation with Fortune’s Diane Brady. He speaks from experience. Early in his career, Peyovich worked as a carpenter before eventually moving into corporate leadership, drawn—by his own admission—to higher pay. But now, he’s become an advocate for rebuilding the skilled trades pipeline at a time when interest in the field has lagged behind demand. Filling the skilled trades gap is proving easier said than done In an era where AI is increasingly reshaping, and in some cases threatening, traditional white-collar roles, hands-on work has emerge