In France, data centers consume large quantities of megawatts but offer few jobs.

This is the paradox of these digital giants that are multiplying in the Paris region: they monopolize space and electricity, but generate few direct jobs, according to researchers.

With more than 160 data centers, the region concentrates more than 70% of French infrastructure and stands out as the leading hub in continental Europe, according to the Paris Region Institute.

On the ground, the elected officials' assessment is straightforward. The right-wing mayor of Magny-les-Hameaux, Pierre-Louis Brière, in office since March, sums it up: "This is not at all a sector that creates a huge number of jobs compared to the space it takes up, the land it uses."

"Only a few residents work there," he remarks. The job losses are all the more striking when digital technology replaces heavy industry.

In La Courneuve, a northern suburb of Paris, Jean-Marie Baty, president of the environmental association MNLE 93, is alarmed: "When the Eurocopter factory was here, there were 700 jobs, and now there are 36 for the same surface area occupied."

Overvalued promises

The gap with logistics is just as staggering. Sociologist Loup Cellard, who has been studying these sites since 2021, reports that "for an equivalent footprint, a logistics company typically has between 300 and 400 employees, whereas a datacenter will have 15 or 20."

When compared to the capital invested, the result remains meager: "That's one job per 24 million (euros) of investment," he calculates based on sector studies.

This excess echoes the Choose France summit, where Emmanuel Macron announced on Monday 93 billion euros of investments for only 15.000 jobs.

The issue of employment is causing irritation even in Parliament.

David Ros, a Socialist senator and author of a proposed law on the subject, points to inflated promises: in Seine-Saint-Denis, "of the 1.600 jobs announced by developers, only 500 have actually been created." The operators "manipulate the figures quite effectively."

The question remained: why did the ratios vary so dramatically depending on the study? Philippe Schmit, former president of the Île-de-France Environmental Authority, sheds some light on the matter: "If we're talking about jobs per square meter of building, a ratio of 1 to 1.000 is plausible." But the picture changes as soon as we consider the total ground footprint of these "machine-factories": "With parking lots, roads, and wooded areas, the ratios vary considerably," sometimes as much as one job per 10.000 square meters.

With operators having long acquired vast land reserves, the picture becomes unflattering. To dress up this human void, the promoters "dress their data center with the word campus," he explains, an academic semantic intended to "make the project more acceptable to local elected officials," even though the few interns welcomed "do not represent permanent staff."

Job quality

The industry, for its part, defends its model. In the hyper-secure corridors of its data center, Telehouse's CEO, Sami Slim, turns the argument around: "We create 10 times fewer jobs than a logistics warehouse, but we are 10 times better in terms of job quality," with "permanent, local and non-relocatable" positions.

Of its 60 megawatts, it claims 300 jobs in the long term: "A fiber to be spliced? I splice it. I cannot do it remotely."

Counting only the operator's employees would also be "misleading," adds Florian du Boÿs, founder of the association Les Plombiers du numérique in Nanterre: "Does a station create jobs?"

On these construction sites, young people without qualifications find a springboard. Mazir, 20, "trained by the Plumbers", testifies to this: "I had nothing to show for it. A friend told me about this training".

At the national level, the sector claims approximately 50.000 direct and indirect jobs for 300 centers, according to a Senate report from last February.