Clean energy jobs grew twice as fast as overall energy sector last year, DOE says

Jobs in the clean energy industry grew by 142,000 jobs in 2023, accounting for more than half of new energy sector jobs, according to the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE).

The DOE’s 2024 U.S. Energy and Employment Report (USEER) said clean energy jobs grew at 4.2 percent, twice as fast as that for the rest of the energy sector and the U.S. economy overall. The growth, according to the DOE, is spurred by the Biden-Harris Administration’s record investments in climate, clean energy, and manufacturing.

Specifically, the 2024 USEER shows that the energy workforce overall added over 250,000 jobs in 2023; 56 percent of which were in clean energy.

“Our policies are working. We are now starting to see the job impacts of investments made through the infrastructure and inflation reduction laws – first in construction and as America builds more of these factories, we’ll see hundreds of thousands more,” U.S. Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm said. “The data clearly show that clean energy means jobs – good jobs, union jobs, and jobs retained – in communities across the country as we race to dominate the global clean energy economy.”

It found that jobs in clean energy grew in all 50 states and the District of Columbia with Idaho seeing the fastest rate of clean energy job growth, increasing at 7.7 percent. Texas was next at 6 percent followed by New Mexico at 5.9 percent.

Texas (969,801), California (932,273), Michigan (401,720), Florida (351,934), and Ohio (333,110) have the most energy jobs in the country. California (545,207), Texas (261,934), New York (177,202), Florida (172,115), and Illinois (130,473) have the most clean energy jobs.

Solar and wind sectors reported strong job growth, rising 5.3 percent and 4.5 percent, respectively.

Further, energy construction is booming, adding nearly 90,000 energy jobs. It is growing at a 4.5 percent clip, almost double the economy-wide construction employment growth of 2.3 percent. In addition to the 90,000 traditional energy construction jobs, the report said there were an additional 28,000 jobs focused on building new battery and solar module factories, ports for offshore wind, and warehouses to store and transport clean energy products.

In addition, the utilities sector saw the fastest employment growth of 5.0 percent in 2023, adding nearly 30,000 jobs. Further, wind and solar employment grew at rates well above average, while clean vehicle employment increased 11.4 percent, adding 24,826 jobs.

Meanwhile, the energy efficiency sector supported almost 2.3 million jobs in 2023, adding nearly 75,000 positions from the year before.

Overall, employment increased across all five USEER energy technology categories: electric power generation; energy efficiency; fuels; motor vehicles; and transmission, distribution, and storage.

Also, for the first time ever, unionization rates in clean energy, at 12.4 percent, surpassed the average rate in the energy sector of 11 percent.

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