I was wondering. How to find the necessary workforce to switch from a centuries old fossil economy to a renewable one? What are the figures?
The worlds energy sector has 65 million jobs. This is about 2% of global employment (2019). More than half are now in clean energy, according to the International Energy Agency. Nearly two-thirds of the workers are involved in building new projects and manufacturing clean energy technologies.
The clean energy transition could create 14 million new jobs related to clean energy technologies, shift around 5 million workers from fossil fuels, and require additional skills and training for an estimated 30 million employees.
Offshore wind
The wind energy sector needs lots of workers. Since I am mostly concerned about how the quest for a net zero society will affect the ocean, I stick to offshore wind.
Two years ago, in 2019, China had 45 offshore wind projects, either planned, started or completed. Germany had 28, Japan and the US 1.
Today these figures are: 407, 188, 167 and 187 respectively, and climbing. The UK is second with 229.
By 2026 more than half a million wind technicians are needed for wind energy construction and maintenance.
Battery demand for electric vehicles will grow 40 times the next 20 years. And the overall demand for minerals, 30 times, according to IEA. In Europe, the battery industry is expected to create 735 000 new jobs by 2030.
A split workforce
Jobs in the oil sector are generally better paid than in the renewable energy sector. However, volatile oil prices means job insecurity. In good times you make good money, like today. When the price of a barrel drops, you are laid off, which happened in 2020 during the pandemic.
Oil and gas companies laid off 160 000 workers in 2020 in the US and kept tight budgets the last two years. Renewable businesses hired extensively. The oil and gas industry had roughly 700,000 fewer workers last year than six years earlier, a decline of over 20 percent. By comparison, employment in wind energy grew nearly 20 percent from 2016 to 2021, to more than 113,000 workers.
Wages in clean energy jobs lag behind those in the fossil fuel industry, where unionization rates are higher and risky work has been compensated with higher pay. The salary for an engineer in renewable energy in the US is significantly lower ($78,000) than in the oil and gas industry ($107,000).
However, one survey found that oil and gas workers want to make a shift to renewable industries, with 56% of these workers indicating that they’d pursue jobs in green energy.
Energy employment exceeds pre-pandemic levels today thanks to resilient growth in clean energy. Fossil fuel employment, however, is only set to return to pre-pandemic levels
Why we need the High Seas Treaty
Combined with the Montreal agreement, the High Seas Treaty can make life harder for ocean burglars.
I am trying to grasp this. What numbers are we talking about?
Lack of skilled workers
So, why worry? Clean energy is booming, investors shift from fossil to renewable, and so does the workforce?
It’s this: A survey of more than 12,500 businesses and 685 authorities revealed that more than 80% of companies and 60% of local authorities believe the skills shortage, particularly in engineering and digital, is preventing climate change projects from progressing.
A critical component of people-centred energy transitions will be to create quality jobs while at the same time re-skilling and training the world’s existing energy workforce. This is a huge task.
Europe has and still is an innovation leader in green technologies. But the EU is not investing enough to reach net zero targets or to keep up with global competition. The US has over a decade spent 2% more of its GDP in productive investment than Europe.
As the energy sector, investors and politicians try to figure out how to reach net zero targets, the damages it will cause may be ignored. I hope not.
Featured image: During a summer vacation to Western Norway during the pandemic, we passed the abandoned oil platform Scarabeo 8.
