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About half the US clean energy industry jobs lost as a result of
the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 had been regained by the end of the
year, as wind energy and clean vehicle manufacturing employment
drove the recovery, according to a study released 19 April.
The study came out the same day as US Secretary of Energy
Jennifer Granholm took part in a webinar sponsored by labor
organizations to emphasize the job creation potential of the American Jobs Plan, its
investment impact in clean energy technologies, and their role in
reducing GHG emissions.
On 22 April, Earth Day, GHG emissions will again be the
focus of the administration at the Leaders Climate Summit convened
by President Joe Biden.
According to the E2 study based on US Bureau of Labor Statistics
and interviews with business owners, the clean energy sector
finished 2020 with about 3 million employees, compared with 3.36
million a year earlier. That loss of more than 300,000 jobs
compares with some 600,000 workers from the sector who were seeking
unemployment benefit at the height of the pandemic's impact, the
data show.
The 3 million total is still larger than the number of people
employed as middle or elementary school teachers in the US,
according to Bob Keefe, executive director, E2, which is a
nonpartisan group of business leaders, investors, and
professionals. It is also nearly three times as many as work in
fossil fuel extraction and generation, he said.
US clean energy job numbers rose about 11% since unemployment
due to the pandemic peaked in May 2020, compared with less than 9%
in the overall US workforce in the same period, according to the
study.
Clean vehicle manufacturing jobs rose nearly 3% to 273,630 in
2020 as automakers increasingly shifted to cleaner and more
efficient electric cars, trucks, and buses. Electric and hybrid
electric vehicle employment grew more than 6%, adding over 12,000
new jobs in 2020, the biggest increase of any clean energy
category, according to the study.
Many of those jobs were new jobs, rather than rehires,
especially in the supply chain sector, Phil Jordan, principal, BW
Research, told attendees of a press conference announcing the
study. BW Research collected and analyzed the data for the
study.
Energy efficiency takes the biggest hit
However, energy efficiency jobs saw the biggest drop, declining
about 11% to 2,107,174 in 2020 as workers were prevented from
entering homes and offices because of pandemic-induced
lockdowns.
Energy efficiency, for all the focus on and hype for other
segments of the industry, is the biggest job provider in the clean
energy sector. The segment employs workers in occupations such as
construction laborers, electricians, and heating and cooling
technicians, as well as factory workers producing Energy Star
appliances and energy-efficient lighting and building
materials.
The clean energy sector in 2020 accounted for 2.2% of total US
employment, including 19% of all construction jobs, over 5% of jobs
in wholesale trade, and more than 4% of all manufacturing jobs, the
data show.
"Clean energy is not just good for our planet, it is a boon for
our economy," said David Turk, deputy secretary, US Department of
Energy (DOE), said on the call announcing the study.
Eight states were home to more than 100,000 clean energy workers
at the end of 2020, E2 said. Georgia, Kentucky, Pennsylvania, and
Michigan saw the fastest clean energy job growth after unemployment
peaked in May, with all four seeing growth of more than 20% from
June through the end of 2020, it added.
The shift is not just about quantity though, it is about
quality, said Turk, adding there was a moral imperative to make
sure that such jobs were spread widely across the US, including to
communities with high concentrations of people of color and low
income.
'Red, white, and blue jobs'
If members of Congress want good-paying jobs for their
districts, then they need to support the policies of Biden in the
halls and committee rooms of Capitol Hill, said Keefe. Such jobs
are "not red state jobs, not blue state jobs; they're red, white,
and blue jobs," he said.
That theme was also explored at the 19 April webinar, where
Biden administration officials and union representatives sought to
push Biden's American Jobs Plan and its clean energy components as
a path to middle-class jobs in communities of color and others
facing widespread poverty.
The American Jobs Plan will allow the US to deploy the
technology it has now to reach the clean energy and electrification
goals set by the Biden administration, Granholm told Ernest Moniz,
who was energy secretary between 2013 and 2017, during the webinar
hosted by the Energy Futures Initiative (EFI) and the AFL-CIO
federation of unions. Moniz founded and heads EFI, a nonprofit that
hopes to advance solutions to climate change.
"I am so impatient. My hair is on fire," when it comes to
getting the investment in clean energy sector and projects built,
said Granholm, while admitting that generation facilities,
industrial site reclamation, critical mineral mines, and factories
for building wind farms or solar panels all take time to bring to
fruition.
No man left behind
Granholm -- as had Turk -- stressed that low income and
industrial communities could not be left behind, saying it was
foolish to say people should just move on if an industry or a US
facility in a particular industry became uncompetitive or
uneconomic.
The American Jobs Plan is a commitment to coal communities and
others that have seemed to have been left behind, she said.
DOE has completed a study on improving the future for coal
communities, including investment that will support jobs, and it
will be released shortly, Granholm said, adding that the exact date
of the study's release was currently unclear.
Many of the coal-centric communities -- where there are few
other middle-class, well-paying, unionized positions -- need
support, are rural and want the help the American Jobs Plan offers,
AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka told Moniz during the webinar.
According to data from the Housing Assistance Council, a US
nonprofit, rural areas represent 86% of persistent poverty counties
in the US. As Congress and the Biden administration explore policy
solutions to turn around "a pandemic crippled economy, it is
imperative that solutions target rural places," World Resources
Institute (WRI) argued in analysis released 19 April.
About 1 in 10 clean energy jobs are in rural counties, according
to WRI. Of the 139 counties where clean energy employment
represents more than 5% of total county jobs, two-thirds are rural
as opposed to urban, it said. There are also 18 rural counties (and
seven urban counties) where clean energy jobs account for more than
10% of total employment, it added.
However, clean energy jobs are outpaced by employment in
extractive industries in rural counties of states, especially those
that produce coal.
There is still a long way to go in regaining the jobs lost to
the pandemic as well as the momentum lost for energy jobs, said
Jordan.
As a result, Congress can do more to boost job totals in the
sector, according to the E2 study, recommending lawmakers in
Washington:
Pass and fund legislation to create a national car-charging
network, expand building efficiency improvements, and modernize the
electric grid;
Extend, expand, and improve accessibility to federal tax
incentives for energy efficiency, wind, solar, energy storage, and
zero-emission vehicles;
Make federal investments in clean energy, vehicle and battery
storage, energy efficiency, and regenerative and low-carbon
agriculture;
Increase funding for existing programs and pass new programs to
create new employment opportunities, improve equity, and meet the
workforce requirements of a better, cleaner economy, and;
Facilitate and leverage privately financed clean energy
projects and improve equity.
