Last week, we passed the second anniversary of Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act, which was passed in 2022, and its impact has been largely positive for climate jobs.

While the Biden administration has struggled to convince the public of how much good their economic policies have done for the economy, history is likely to look back at Biden’s time as president as one marked by remarkably steady growth and a well-managed “soft landing” following years of turmoil after the Covid pandemic and a chaotic Trump presidency.

Two years on we have a more complete picture of just how much good the IRA has done for the climate sector, and what may be on the horizon for the continued growth in the space.

Clean Energy Jobs Grew at Twice the Rate of US Jobs

According to reporting at Bloomberg, the country added 142,000 jobs in green tech, including renewables, EV and battery manufacturing last year. These clean energy jobs grew twice as fast as the rest of both the energy industry and the US economy, thanks in large part to the Biden administration’s climate policies.

As Bloomberg notes, job growth across the US economy was only 2%, while clean energy jobs grew at 4.2% over the last year. Electric vehicles, renewable energy, transmission, distribution, and storage jobs got a big bump, while solar and wind grew even more, with 5.3% and 4.5% growth in each.

It's important to note that many of the previous reports we’ve seen about growth in climate jobs have largely been “projected” numbers, as Heatmap notes. The Department of Energy puts out an annual employment report, that was just released, and it contains all kinds of interesting nuggets about the climate jobs sector growth in 2023 (it is a backward-looking report, not a projection).

Mixed News and Key Highlights from the DOE’s Annual Employment Report

Heatmap reporters dug into the report and pulled out three interesting takeaways: Clean energy jobs are increasing (as are fossil fuel jobs), unions are playing a larger role in clean energy jobs, and there’s quite a bit of work to be done to ensure that energy jobs remain diverse and inclusive.

According to the report, more than half of the new jobs in the energy sector (56%), as a whole, were clean energy jobs. These include roles in zero-emissions vehicles, carbon capture, nuclear energy, non-fossil energy efficiency, and renewable energy. Of those, work in low-emissions vehicles grew the most, adding 25,000 jobs last year, with a majority of those in battery-electric vehicles. Charging jobs also grew by 25%, though, as Heatmap notes, the sector is still relatively small compared to the rest of the green energy jobs. Fewer than 3,000 people currently work in that area. Electric power generation also grew, adding more than 18,000 new solar jobs.

But the news isn’t all rosy for climate jobs. At the same time that green energy jobs grew, jobs in the fossil fuel space also increased last year. Fossil fuel jobs accounted for 44% of new work, according to Heatmap. There is some softness in this number, as their reporting notes, however, “This may not be the full story — for example, jobs working on gasoline and diesel vehicles grew more than those working on EVs in absolute terms, adding more than 39,000 positions last year. Many of those were likely maintenance and repair jobs, however, which saw more growth overall than manufacturing.” Additionally, coal power jobs were down, but coal mining jobs were up by 3.4%, and there’s some indication that those jobs will continue to grow by around 9% this year because coal plant retirements have slowed as a result of increased electricity demand.

There are, of course, concerns that the green energy transition will leave many fossil-dependent communities, both locally and abroad, behind. As Inside Climate News reported in May this year, there are concerns that communities may not yet have the skills necessary for green jobs. This is frequently referred to as the “green skills gap;” while job postings for positions like those in solar and wind are growing, the skills that workers need to get those jobs are lacking. While the American Climate Corps has partnered with North America's Building Trades Union's TradesFutures program to help people gain training through apprenticeships and other training opportunities, as communities transition away from fossil-based work, there will still be some downsides to the green transition that could leave some communities wanting for work.

This brings me to the next highlight that Heatmap points out: Unions are increasingly getting involved in green jobs. The clean energy job unionization rate exceeded the energy sector’s rate, as a whole, for the first time ever in 2023. More than 12% of workers in the clean energy space were represented by a union, versus 11% in the energy sector. One of the most significant moves that unions made was in manufacturing, particularly EV and battery manufacturing, thanks in large part to the United Auto Workers' efforts in late 2023 to ensure that unions would be involved in the green energy transition. Heatmap points out that energy employers (overall) are having less trouble finding workers than they were the year before.

While that's mostly good news, diversity and representation in green energy are still significantly lacking, and very little progress has been made to change that. As Heatmap reports, women held only 26% of the energy jobs last year, though they make up nearly half of the workforce (47% to be exact). As Heatmap reports, "When new jobs came along, an even smaller proportion, 17%, were filled by women. That's way worse than the previous year, when half of new energy jobs were filled by women. Black workers are also particularly underrepresented in the energy sector, holding just 9% of energy jobs compared to 13% of the job market as a whole." At the same time, Hispanic and Latino workers now make up 18% of the sector, which is an increase in market share over previous years.

The Bottom Line on Climate Employment

One important thing to note about the DOE report is that it focuses on high-skill labor–typically union jobs and this really represents only a snapshot of the available climate jobs on the market right now. There are plenty of other opportunities in a wide variety of areas, and we host those kinds of jobs on Climatebase. Any job can be a climate job, and behind the scenes, we’re going to have some exciting news that will give you a better idea of just how robust the climate jobs sector is outside of union-type labor. Stay tuned to this newsletter for our upcoming announcement!

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