IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/h/nbr/nberch/14707.html
   My bibliography  Save this book chapter

Green Energy Jobs in the United States: What Are They, and Where Are They?

In: Environmental and Energy Policy and the Economy, volume 4

Author

Listed:
  • E. Mark Curtis
  • Ioana Marinescu

Abstract

Does the growth of renewable energy benefit US workers, and which workers stand to benefit the most? Until now, evidence on green energy jobs has been limited due to measurement issues. We use data on nearly all jobs posted online in the United States, as collected by Burning Glass Technologies, and we create a new measure of green jobs, defined here as solar and wind jobs. We use job titles and task requirements to define green jobs. We find that both solar and wind job postings have more than tripled since 2010, with solar jobs seeing especially strong growth that precedes the growth of new installed solar capacity. In 2019, we identify approximately 52,500 solar job openings and 13,500 wind job openings. Solar jobs are mostly (33%) in sales occupations and in the utilities industry (16%). Wind jobs are most represented among installation and maintenance occupations (37%) and in the manufacturing industry (29%). Green jobs are created in occupations that are about 21% higher paying than average. The pay premium is even higher for jobs with a low educational requirement. Finally, green jobs tend to locate in counties with high shares of employment in fossil fuel extraction. Overall, our results suggest that the growth of renewable energy leads to the creation of relatively high-paying jobs, which are more often than not located in areas that stand to lose from a decline in fossil fuel extraction jobs.
(This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)

Suggested Citation

  • E. Mark Curtis & Ioana Marinescu, 2022. "Green Energy Jobs in the United States: What Are They, and Where Are They?," NBER Chapters, in: Environmental and Energy Policy and the Economy, volume 4, pages 202-237, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberch:14707
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/chapters/c14707.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. David H. Autor & David Dorn & Gordon H. Hanson, 2016. "The China Shock: Learning from Labor-Market Adjustment to Large Changes in Trade," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 8(1), pages 205-240, October.
    2. Consoli, Davide & Marin, Giovanni & Marzucchi, Alberto & Vona, Francesco, 2016. "Do green jobs differ from non-green jobs in terms of skills and human capital?," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 45(5), pages 1046-1060.
    3. Francesco Vona & Giovanni Marin & Davide Consoli & David Popp, 2018. "Environmental Regulation and Green Skills: An Empirical Exploration," Journal of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, University of Chicago Press, vol. 5(4), pages 713-753.
    4. Brad Hershbein & Lisa B. Kahn, 2018. "Do Recessions Accelerate Routine-Biased Technological Change? Evidence from Vacancy Postings," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 108(7), pages 1737-1772, July.
    5. Francesco Vona & Giovanni Marin & Davide Consoli, 2019. "Measures, drivers and effects of green employment: evidence from US local labor markets, 2006–2014," Journal of Economic Geography, Oxford University Press, vol. 19(5), pages 1021-1048.
    6. Francesco Vona & Giovanni Marin & Davide Consoli & David Popp, 2018. "Environmental Regulation and Green Skills: An Empirical Exploration," Journal of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, University of Chicago Press, vol. 5(4), pages 713-753.
    7. Hafstead, Marc A.C. & Williams, Roberton C., 2018. "Unemployment and environmental regulation in general equilibrium," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 160(C), pages 50-65.
    8. W. Reed Walker, 2011. "Environmental Regulation and Labor Reallocation: Evidence from the Clean Air Act," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(3), pages 442-447, May.
    9. Michael Greenstone, 2002. "The Impacts of Environmental Regulations on Industrial Activity: Evidence from the 1970 and 1977 Clean Air Act Amendments and the Census of Manufactures," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 110(6), pages 1175-1219, December.
    10. Marc A. C. Hafstead & Roberton C. Williams III, 2020. "Jobs and Environmental Regulation," Environmental and Energy Policy and the Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 1(1), pages 192-240.
    11. Avi Goldfarb & Bledi Taska & Florenta Teodoridis, 2020. "Artificial Intelligence in Health Care? Evidence from Online Job Postings," AEA Papers and Proceedings, American Economic Association, vol. 110, pages 400-404, May.
    12. E. Mark Curtis, 2018. "Who Loses under Cap-and-Trade Programs? The Labor Market Effects of the NOx Budget Trading Program," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 100(1), pages 151-166, March.
    13. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/1fkb59dcsg9alqqq6qv18jj5us is not listed on IDEAS
    14. Rutzer, Christian & Niggli, Matthias & Weder, Rolf, 2020. "Estimating the Green Potential of Occupations: A New Approach Applied to the U.S. Labor Market," Working papers 2020/03, Faculty of Business and Economics - University of Basel.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Ben Etheridge & Aitor Irastorza-Fadrique & Michael J. Böhm, 2024. "The impact of labour demand shocks when occupational labour supplies are heterogeneous," IFS Working Papers W24/28, Institute for Fiscal Studies.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Marin, Giovanni & Vona, Francesco, 2019. "Climate policies and skill-biased employment dynamics: Evidence from EU countries," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 98(C).
    2. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/5ahh4t5kfl8nprei89ignlk5nl is not listed on IDEAS
    3. repec:spo:wpmain:info:hdl:2441/5ahh4t5kfl8nprei89ignlk5nl is not listed on IDEAS
    4. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/6d7es28iae9pjoil7092hs41h3 is not listed on IDEAS
    5. repec:spo:wpmain:info:hdl:2441/6d7es28iae9pjoil7092hs41h3 is not listed on IDEAS
    6. Francesco Vona, 2019. "Job losses and political acceptability of climate policies: why the ‘job-killing’ argument is so persistent and how to overturn it," Climate Policy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 19(4), pages 524-532, April.
    7. Elliott, Robert J.R. & Kuai, Wenjing & Maddison, David & Ozgen, Ceren, 2024. "Eco-innovation and (green) employment: A task-based approach to measuring the composition of work in firms," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 127(C).
    8. Saussay, Aurélien & Sato, Misato & Vona, Francesco & O’Kane, Layla, 2022. "Who’s fit for the low-carbon transition? Emerging skills and wage gaps in job and data," FEEM Working Papers 329079, Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei (FEEM).
    9. repec:spo:wpmain:info:hdl:2441/2vteelu0n785l82j764n6ul273 is not listed on IDEAS
    10. Liao, Jiaqi & Zhang, Ning, 2024. "Environmental regulation and manufacturing employment: Evidence from China's Eleventh Five-Year Plan," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 87(C).
    11. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/2vteelu0n785l82j764n6ul273 is not listed on IDEAS
    12. Francesco Vona & Giovanni Marin & Davide Consoli, 2019. "Measures, drivers and effects of green employment: evidence from US local labor markets, 2006–2014," Journal of Economic Geography, Oxford University Press, vol. 19(5), pages 1021-1048.
    13. Jiyu Zhao & Ning Zhang, 2023. "Environmental regulation and labor market: a bibliometric analysis," Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, Springer, vol. 25(7), pages 6095-6116, July.
    14. Marin, Giovanni & Vona, Francesco, 2021. "The impact of energy prices on socioeconomic and environmental performance: Evidence from French manufacturing establishments, 1997–2015," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 135(C).
    15. Francesco Vona, 2018. "Job losses and the political acceptability of climate policies : an amplified collective action problem," SciencePo Working papers Main hal-03458275, HAL.
    16. repec:spo:wpmain:info:hdl:2441/2lpvf5mlr48dkah5qda4hh4e9g is not listed on IDEAS
    17. repec:spo:wpmain:info:hdl:2441/1jrfjrj6fp8t6q12fv5lra520c is not listed on IDEAS
    18. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/1jrfjrj6fp8t6q12fv5lra520c is not listed on IDEAS
    19. Francesco Vona, 2018. "Job losses and the political acceptability of climate policies : an amplified collective action problem," Post-Print hal-03458275, HAL.
    20. Janser, Markus, 2018. "The greening of jobs in Germany : First evidence from a text mining based index and employment register data," IAB-Discussion Paper 201814, Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB), Nürnberg [Institute for Employment Research, Nuremberg, Germany].
    21. Zhang, Guanglai & Zhang, Ning, 2024. "Environmental regulation and worker earnings: Evidence from city-level air quality standards in China," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 138(C).
    22. Rutzer, Christian & Niggli, Matthias, 2020. "Environmental Policy and Heterogeneous Labor Market Effects: Evidence from Europe," Working papers 2020/09, Faculty of Business and Economics - University of Basel.
    23. Hille, Erik & Möbius, Patrick, 2019. "Do energy prices affect employment? Decomposed international evidence," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 96(C), pages 1-21.
    24. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/2lpvf5mlr48dkah5qda4hh4e9g is not listed on IDEAS
    25. Bluedorn, John & Hansen, Niels-Jakob & Noureldin, Diaa & Shibata, Ippei & Tavares, Marina M., 2023. "Transitioning to a greener labor market: Cross-country evidence from microdata," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 126(C).
    26. Lobsiger, Michael & Rutzer, Christian, 2021. "Green potential of Europe's labour force: Relative share and possible skills imbalances," Working papers 2021/04, Faculty of Business and Economics - University of Basel.
    27. repec:spo:wpmain:info:hdl:2441/6m5kss847r91no96hiublu6anu is not listed on IDEAS
    28. Olivier Deschenes, 2018. "Environmental regulations and labor markets," IZA World of Labor, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA), pages 1-22, November.
    29. Vona, Francesco, 2023. "Skills and human capital for the low-carbon transition in developing and emerging economies," FEEM Working Papers 338778, Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei (FEEM).
    30. Elliott, Robert J. R. & Kuai, Wenjing & Maddison, David & Ozgen, Ceren, 2021. "Eco-Innovation and Employment: A Task-Based Analysis," IZA Discussion Papers 14028, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    31. Barbieri, Nicolò & Consoli, Davide, 2019. "Regional diversification and green employment in US metropolitan areas," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 48(3), pages 693-705.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • Q5 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics
    • E2 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment
    • J4 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Particular Labor Markets

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nbr:nberch:14707. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.