Per-MW pricing, regional variance, and cost drivers for owners scoping hyperscale & AI builds.
Salary benchmarks across the 14 mission-critical disciplines.
Intel Ohio One is no longer a heavy civil story. It is now a workforce timing story. As of September 1, 2026, the New Albany campus has logged 9.4+ million work hours, finished major underground infrastructure, moved into above-grade building work, and pushed its fab completion targets to 2030 for Mod 1 and 2031 for Mod 2.
If I boil the article down, here’s the simple takeaway: the jobs in demand change as the build phase changes. Early work needed excavation and site crews. Today’s phase leans more on structural teams, electrical leads, mechanical teams, project controls, and MEP planning. Later phases will put more pressure on commissioning, tool install, process piping, and cleanroom-ready trades.
Here’s the full picture in plain English:
In other words: Ohio One shows how a multi-year semiconductor build changes labor demand step by step. That is the main point of the article.
Intel Ohio One: How Workforce Demand Shifts Across Each Build Phase
The New Albany site has moved past underground work and into above-grade structural work. The basement level of the first fab structures is done, vertical steel and concrete work is in progress on the fab buildings and support buildings, and all major underground infrastructure is finished.[1][2][5]
Now the work is much more visible on site. Crews are handling structural framing, concrete pours for fab and auxiliary buildings, plus work on office buildings and other support buildings. Major utility equipment has also started landing, including four oversized air separation units.[14]
This kind of phase shift changes the labor mix in a big way. As the build moves upward, demand starts to move away from earthwork crews and toward structural, MEP, and controls teams. In plain English: fewer people moving dirt, more people putting the plant together.
Intel said it invested about $1.4 billion to $1.53 billion in Ohio in 2025 alone, which brings total capital expenditure to about $5.26 billion.[2][9]
What matters now is the current schedule, not the first target. The table below shows the latest public timing for each module.[1][7]
That schedule now shapes how Intel and its contractors line up labor, procurement, and commissioning work. It also sets the pace for when leadership, technical, and craft roles need to scale up.
With milestone dates now spread across several years, Ohio One is no longer running like a sprint. It looks much more like a phased program, and as the timeline shifts, the workforce mix shifts with it.
Project controls teams are resetting the master schedule and rebuilding the critical path around the updated milestones. The goal is to find spots where extra float can soak up risk without pushing technical dates off track.[1][5][15][16] In plain terms, the job is not just about moving fast. It's about hitting dates with fewer surprises.
Procurement changes too. Long-lead equipment like large chillers, switchgear, and specialty gas systems has to be timed with care so it doesn't show up years before crews can install it. Standing agreements and reserved supplier capacity with key suppliers help keep the project ready to speed back up if market conditions shift.[1][7][16] From there, MEP materials and prefab assemblies are tied to rolling look-ahead schedules, with releases triggered by confirmed structural turnover dates instead of fixed calendar targets.
Labor planning follows the same logic. Crews are pushed into active work fronts to keep output steady, while other areas are intentionally held back until the schedule calls for them. That decision shapes when leaders, planners, and field teams are needed - and in what numbers.
The structural work underway now sets the stage for everything that comes next. Column grids, bay spacing, floor loading, and interstitial mechanical heights locked in today will decide what kinds of cleanroom layouts, tool footprints, and overhead distribution racks the campus can support later.[3][5]
Pre-planned structural penetrations for high-purity piping, exhaust ducts, and cable conduits are also being fixed now. Since major underground work is largely complete, later MEP activity can focus on vertical risers, branch distribution, and tie-ins instead of major trenching. That matters because heavy civil work and cleanroom fit-out don't mix safely. Finishing underground work now helps keep future cleanroom areas clear and clean when the dense MEP phase begins.
If this coordination is done well, MEP trades can later install prefabricated spool assemblies and multi-trade rack modules in spaces that were prepared in advance, which helps install rates and cuts down on clashes.[3][5] If it's done poorly, late coring and rerouting can turn into expensive schedule problems and squeeze the tool-install window.
Commissioning strategy is being shaped right now too. The way chilled water loops, electrical feeders, and gas distribution systems are divided today will determine whether commissioning can happen later by bay, by module, or one system at a time.[1][5] Early partial commissioning - flushing lines, pressure testing, and energizing shared utilities - can start in finished sections before the full campus is complete, which takes pressure off the final commissioning window.
Those sequencing choices now drive demand for project leaders, schedulers, MEP specialists, commissioning teams, and skilled craft labor. That's what makes Ohio One such a useful hiring case study.
Those sequencing calls rely on a layered workforce, from senior leaders to craft crews. And that mix now shows exactly where hiring pressure is building. In plain terms, the project has moved to a stage where some roles matter much more than they did earlier on.
At the top level, project executives set construction project delivery priorities, matching Intel's fab goals with contractor capacity and CHIPS Act milestones. Project managers keep design, procurement, and field work moving together across fab shells, central utility plants, and site infrastructure. Construction managers translate those plans into day-to-day field execution, handling logistics and access across a campus that has already logged more than 9.4 million work hours.[1][4][10] Superintendents manage sequencing, crane use, and trade flow in real time.[13][17][10]
Right behind them, schedulers and cost engineers keep the project controls side tight. Schedulers map how a delay in one area can push later MEP work and commissioning windows. Cost engineers track committed spend against actual spend and connect change orders to CHIPS Act reporting.[1][3][4] These jobs are some of the hardest to fill because they call for experience on large programs and mission-critical sites.
As the work shifts from structure to systems, the pressure moves with it. That puts MEP leadership squarely in the spotlight.
As the shells close in, MEP managers become central to execution. They oversee chilled water, HVAC, exhaust, UPW, and high-voltage power across several buildings at the same time.[1][4][8] Electrical leads are in the hottest demand at Ohio One right now because the job is deep into high-voltage wiring and utility hook-ups.[8][3] Mechanical leads run air-handling units, chilled water plants, and cleanroom environmental controls. Field engineers handle RFIs, sort out clashes, and confirm installation across millions of square feet of technical space.[6][10]
QA/QC professionals matter just as much for quality and compliance. On a CHIPS-funded project, documented inspections and test records don't just support internal standards - they also back federal audit needs.[4][12][10] As parts of the site near completion, commissioning managers and agents build and carry out startup plans for utilities, cleanroom environments, and life-safety systems. They hand systems over in phases rather than waiting for the full campus to be done.[1][4] These roles are hard to find because employers want people with semiconductor or other high-tech industrial backgrounds.
By this point, the pinch point on site starts to move. It's no longer just about planning well. It's about having enough skilled hands to do the work.
Electricians and plumbers/pipefitters are in the highest demand. Contractors are running 50-hour workweeks and offering overtime pay plus attendance bonuses to keep crews on site for key high-voltage and process utility hook-ups.[8] As the build moves deeper into MEP work, sheet metal workers and specialty industrial contractors focused on process piping, UPW systems, and cleanroom envelopes become the next bottlenecks.[4][8]
Union estimates put 8,000–10,000 craft workers in central Ohio working directly on Intel-related construction at peak.[19][18] Keeping that workforce in place through a multi-year build - without burning people out or losing them to other projects - is one of the most immediate challenges facing Ohio One's contractors.
For employers, the filter isn't just raw trade skill. They want people who have already worked on cleanroom, process-utility, or other mission-critical builds. That pushes demand toward recruiters who can find:
At Ohio One, the toughest hiring gaps have shifted into senior MEP, commissioning, and controls. As the campus moves deeper into MEP work and commissioning, pressure builds around a small set of hard-to-find roles.
Commissioning managers sit near the top of the hard-to-fill list. Employers aren’t looking for someone who has only handled commissioning on a commercial building. They want people who have led integrated systems testing across utilities, cleanrooms, and production tools.[1][8] That’s a much smaller talent pool.
Because that pool is so small, prior semiconductor or mission-critical experience becomes the fastest way to screen candidates. Mission-critical construction experience should be the baseline, not a nice extra. Put more weight on candidates from fab, cleanroom, tool install, industrial utilities, data center, pharmaceutical, or advanced manufacturing projects.[11][22][23]
General commercial construction often doesn’t prepare someone for semiconductor jobsite demands. The pace is different. The handoffs are tighter. The tolerance for mistakes is lower.
For leadership roles, focus on people who have owned large scopes directly and can show they’ve handled schedule changes without letting quality slip. For field roles, phased turnover experience and familiarity with high-purity installs usually matter more than total years in the trade.
A smart first screen is phased handover experience on active sites. Ask a plain question: has the candidate worked on phased handover of process utilities or cleanroom systems while construction was still underway in another part of the same campus? That kind of experience lines up closely with how Ohio One’s Mod 1 and Mod 2 are being delivered.[1][5]
The lesson from Ohio One is simple: hire for the next milestone, not just the one in front of you.
Semiconductor hiring needs to move with the build phase, from structure to MEP to commissioning. For employers and recruiters, that means succession planning and talent pipelines matter just as much as filling today’s openings. Large semiconductor campuses create repeat demand for specialized construction leaders, MEP talent, commissioning professionals, and skilled trades across phase after phase. The teams that build those pipelines early, before each hiring spike hits, will be in a much stronger spot than teams that wait until the schedule has already moved and the shortage is already here.
At Intel’s Ohio One campus, the biggest hiring pressure is on mission-critical technical roles. That’s especially true for jobs tied to electrical systems and commissioning, where the talent pool is thin.
The most urgent openings include journeyman electricians, commissioning managers and engineers, and MEP managers. Teams also need controls technicians, BIM/VDC managers, schedulers, and QA/QC leads.
Electricians and pipefitters are tough to hire for Intel Ohio One because the region - and the broader mission-critical market - already has a skilled labor shortage. Demand is high. Supply is tight.
There’s another issue too: this isn’t just standard commercial work. The job calls for specialized experience with dense electrical power, critical process piping, and commissioning-ready installations. So even if someone has solid general commercial experience, that often isn’t enough.
Add in the fact that multiple large projects are chasing the same small talent pool, and it’s easy to see why hiring stays difficult.
Candidates stand out when they’ve worked in mission-critical environments such as semiconductor fabs, hyperscale data centers, pharmaceutical manufacturing, or advanced industrial facilities.
Employers tend to look for people who have led large, fast-track campuses, know complex MEP systems inside and out, and have hands-on experience with integrated systems testing, commissioning, and regulatory compliance.
