Clean energy employment increased by 142,000 jobs in 2023, accounting for more than half of new energy sector jobs and growing at more than double the rate of the rest of the energy sector and the U.S. economy overall.
This is according to the 2024 U.S. Energy and Employment Report (USEER), a study designed to track and understand employment trends across the energy sector released by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE).
It says that as the private sector continues to announce major investments in American-made energy, the 2024 USEER shows that the energy workforce overall added over 250,000 jobs in 2023, with 56% of those in clean energy.
Unionization rates in clean energy, at 12.4%, surpassed the average rate in the energy sector of 11%, driven by growth in unionized construction and utility industries. The sectors experiencing significant growth include renewable energy, as well as transmission, distribution, and storage.
“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,” says U.S. Secretary of Energy Jennifer M. Granholm.
“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.”
This year’s report reflects survey responses from 42,000 businesses nationwide.
