Clean energy industry hurt by pandemic-related job losses

According to a new report, the clean energy industry has been hurt by job losses this year due to the effects of the pandemic.

About 14 percent of the industry’s pre-COVID-19 workforce is unemployed, according to the latest analysis of federal unemployment filings prepared for E2 (Environmental Entrepreneurs), E4TheFuture, and the American Council on Renewable Energy (ACORE) by BW Research Partnership.

Before the coronavirus, employers had projected at least 175,000 new clean energy jobs would be added in 2020. But instead, 478,000 of those jobs have been lost this year.

Jobs in clean energy grew by less than half a percent for the third time in four months in September, the report found. Further, it said just one out of every five clean energy jobs lost between March and May has returned. And, with federal Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) funds mostly exhausted, and negotiations for more stimulus relief stalled, more layoffs could be imminent, the report said.

“Continued paltry job growth and uncertainty headed into the slow winter hiring months confirms the need for federal clean energy stimulus. This won’t turn around by itself. Congress and the White House can’t keep pretending that it will,” Sandra Purohit, advocacy director at E2, said.

Before the pandemic, nearly 3.4 million Americans worked in clean energy occupations, including renewable energy, energy efficiency, grid modernization, clean vehicles, and fuels. That’s more people than work in real estate, banking, or agriculture in the United States. The report also said that it is three times the number of Americans that worked in fossil fuels.

Now, more than 40 states still suffer double-digit unemployment in clean energy, with six states seeing unemployment of 20 percent or more. Georgia has been hit the hardest with over 31 percent of its clean energy workforce unemployed, followed by Kentucky at 28 percent. North Carolina had the lowest clean energy unemployment rate at 0.7 percent.

“The hard-hitting impacts of COVID-19 continue to roil the renewable energy workforce. This report shows more than 75,000 renewable workers in America remain out of a job because of the pandemic,” Gregory Wetstone, president and CEO of ACORE, said.