Green Jobs Growing

Green jobs growth outpaced other-colored job classifications by nearly 250 percent over the last decade, growing 9.1 percent between 1998 and 2007, versus 3.7 percent for the overall job market.

There are now 770,000 green jobs spread out among 68,200 businesses, according to the new report from the Pew Charitable Trusts. While that’s a tiny slice of the overall American jobs pie, it is already approaching the same scale as the traditional energy sector — coal mining, utilities, big oil — which employs 1.27 million people. As a job creator, it stacks up even better against biotechnology, which (despite a longer history and greater investment) employs only 200,000 people.

The report differs from government projections or most industry association estimates in that it counts individual jobs, not entire industries. In other words, only the electricians who actually install solar panels were counted as green electricians.

“Although our numbers are conservative, our report provides the most precise depiction to date of the clean energy economy in the United States,” the Pew researchers wrote.

Green jobs are a major part President Obama’s plan for economic recovery and energy transformation. Manufacturing jobs have declined a few percent a year over the last decade, and in the bullet-point language of Whitehouse.gov, his administration wants to “Drive the development of new, green jobs that pay well and cannot be outsourced.” The report shows that environmentally friendly jobs already exist, but most of the “green” jobs aren’t in clean energy at all. A full 65 percent of the jobs fell into the “conservation and pollution mitigation” category, which includes recycling.

That leaves a lot of room for growth in clean energy, even if some jobs are lost in traditional energy companies. Right now, there’s a small base. There were only 89,000 “clean energy” jobs in 2007. Current research indicates that for renewable energy sources to really make an impact on greenhouse gas emissions and fossil fuel dependence, we’re going to need a lot of manpower.

University of California Berkeley researchers found the renewable energy industry was more labor intensive than traditional fossil-fuel businesses (pdf).

“Across a broad range of scenarios, the renewable energy sector generates more jobs than the fossil fuel-based energy sector per unit of energy delivered (i.e., per average megawatt),” wrote a team from the Goldman School of Public Policy.

To deliver megawatts and jobs, the Pew researchers recommended a “comprehensive, economy-wide energy plan” and implicitly endorsed the President’s stated desire to sign a climate and energy bill like the Waxman-Markey bill wending its way through Congress.

“President Obama has expressed his support for a federal market-based system that would substantially reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and national standards that would help America draw more of its energy supply from clean, renewable sources and achieve greater energy efficiency,” the Pew report concluded. “Those federal and state policies, together with continued private-sector support, will position the United States as a leader in the global clean energy economy.”

See Also:

Biofuel Startup Strives to Meet Obama’s Green Ambitions
Bailout Bill Is Rife With Tasty Green Pork
Green Tech Could Get Economy High, With a Little Help From the Feds
Tapping the Vortex for Green Energy
FutureGen “Cleanish Coal” Plant Cancelled
Clean Tech

Posted by: purvisa | 06/10/09 | 9:07 pm
Let’s see how quickly people jump in here and attack global climate change, Obama, progressives, and others.

(Your terminology may be as outdated as Reagan’s breath, but that’s how things go with regressives these days.)

Posted by: sh0em0nkey | 06/10/09 | 11:03 pm
@purvisa - It’s not a problem when we are discussing climate change - it’s a problem when someone refers to it as “global warming.”
Much like when Obama gives out stimulus packages and says it’s not trickle down economics.
It’s not progress, it’s not change - it’s the same product with different packaging.
Q.: What’s the difference between people preparing for global warming and people expecting an ice age?
A.: People preparing for global warming will freeze to death.
http://www.iceagenow.com/

Posted by: Gifftor | 06/11/09 | 9:54 am
Responding to the actual article instead of which climate change model to which I cater…

I work in that “green” sector and ya’ know what? We’re so busy not only have I never worried about my job security, we’ve done some hiring.

Posted by: Gifftor | 06/11/09 | 9:57 am
oh, @ sh0em0nkey: “UFO Crashed Into Meteorite to Save Earth -
New explanation for Tunguska” is not sound science.

Posted by: xenobiologista | 06/11/09 | 11:25 am
770000 jobs / 68200 businesses = pretty small businesses. That’s a good thing if you want to encourage entrepreneurship.

Posted by: Gifftor | 06/11/09 | 12:04 pm
@xenobiolgista - True for us - 10 full-time employees plus lots of sub-contractor work for guys in formerly “anti-green” jobs (e.g.: drillers).

Posted by: Ender27182818 | 06/11/09 | 12:31 pm
Let’s assume green jobs are a good thing, as the government posits. Why then, are we doing so little to promote something good? Why not tax every sector except the green sector and give all the money to the green sector until every job is green? In fact, why not confiscate profits from non-green industries to force them to become green?

The reason we can’t do this is because if the green sector is not self-sustaining (ie makes enough money to continue business without subsidies) then what we are doing is taking money from industries that work to feed a money destruction machine. When you tax profitable sectors into oblivion, who will you tax next year to continue subsidizing green companies?

The market self-regulates via price. If you screw with prices by taxing some to give to others, you create anomalies in the market that will require further tweaking to fix. Then the government asserts more control to tweak things. And creates more anomalies. Eventually your choices are to have either total government control or none. Which would you prefer?

Posted by: techgm | 06/11/09 | 3:21 pm
Consider the source of the data (Pew) and the nature of its political activism. Then, consider the validity of the data, the validity of definitons, and who benefits from the touting big growth in “green jobs.”

Posted by: PhucNguyen57 | 06/11/09 | 4:13 pm
I’ve been looking for one of those jobs. Where are they?

Posted by: Admiral_Obvious | 06/11/09 | 5:43 pm
What if you have two jobs that kind of conflict in terms of “green” and “anti-green”?

Like, hypothetically, if you have a part-time job installing solar panels while the other job is serving on a whaling ship during the summer.

I mean, people can’t be too picky in this economy, can they?

Posted by: M3kT3k | 06/11/09 | 8:03 pm
I start my new green job in january. I guess the difference though is that instead of solar panels Ill be kicking in doors with an M16. Somehow along the way people forgot the first green jobs were people in green uniforms.

Posted by: anikolchev | 06/12/09 | 12:18 am
Are you left wondering what green jobs may look like? Watch my 5 minute online video about a Veggie Green Team for NOW on PBS: http://www.pbs.org/now/shows/522/veggie-van.html Not only did I learn that green jobs are growing fast but green jobs translate into greener lifestyles for employees. Thanks for the article!

Posted by: Baranjik | 06/27/09 | 7:49 pm
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Posted by: exclaim | 07/24/09 | 4:54 pm
Nice article. The real source of green jobs is green projects. Whether it be business need or stimulus package, the rubber hits the road when a project is launched. And when a project is launched, a project manager is needed. So what people should also be considering in their career planning is green project management. We’ve started to look at that seriously at EarthPM. We have been studying the intersection of PM and green and feature stories like this one as well as interviews with green leaders and a budding green PM certification program. Check it out at http://earthpm.com .