alt Hacker Newsthe problem is that many of those jobs often aren't in the locale. by necessity, car factory workers work, live, spend money, and pay taxes in the same general area as the car factory. that does not hold true for web developers (which may be in entirely different countries).
I recognise that makes it politically tricky, but "creates almost no jobs" and "creates lots of jobs, but dispersed elsewhere" are two very different statements. And for data centers the latter is true, and the former is a lie.