It’s been some three-odd years since the Great Recession and the near total collapse of the global financial system. U.S. unemployment rates remain at historically high levels while job growth has been nowhere near the pace typical of an economic recovery. The abysmal U.S. labor market has economists saying that the political economy of the U.S., as well as the labor market, are out of sync with the times; fundamental, structural flaws are taking their toll.
The idea of building a “green economy”–one focuses on energy conservation and improving energy efficiency, along with developing renewable energy resources and “clean” technology– has been advocated as a business strategy as well as a framework for government job creation policies. Going down this path, advocates say, can yield significant benefits when it comes to a number of critically important issues, not the least of which is revitalizing job growth in the U.S.
Critics contend that the U.S. government is either unwilling or incapable of developing coherent, focused and forward-looking job growth or labor market policies. This is true and actually nothing new– the U.S. has always lagged its developed market counterparts when it comes to the amount invested in and effectiveness of job/vocational training, but it’s particularly frustrating and painful in hard, uncertain times.
Green Jobs and the American Recovery & Reinvestment Act
That said, President Obama and Congress stepped into the breach of the dramatic financial markets collapse and Great Recession, quickly enacting the American Recovery & Reinvestment Act of 2009.
While this emergency piece of legislation did call for substantial government investment in the green economy and green jobs creation, advocates say it did not go far enough. Critics counter that it hasn’t delivered anywhere near what was projected in terms of job growth. Both sides say the “green economy” stimulus could have been better conceived and executed.
Green jobs proponents point out that at a time of fiscal and economic duress, the federal government continues to grant massive subsidies to the hugely profitable oil and gas industry. Meanwhile, a fiercely divided Congress cannot even bring to a vote a federal Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS) or Feed-in Tariff (FiT) that would stimulate job growth and yield other significant near- and long-term benefits by requiring or assuring that a growing percentage of the nation’s electricity be generated from clean, renewable resources.
Moreover, renewable energy and clean tech market participants continue to point out that they are left hanging in the air each year, waiting to see if federal investment and production tax credits will be renewed. This creates uncertainty and raises capital costs across numerous green energy, industrial, manufacturing and service sectors that could stimulate job growth nationwide and create a new anchor for the U.S. economy.
Green Job Growth Driven by States
Given the federal government incapacity, state governments have gone ahead on their own: 33 US states and the District of Columbia have passed Renewable or Alternative Energy Portfolio Standards. States as diverse as California, Colorado, Iowa, New Jersey and Texas have become leading proponents of developing green economic policies as a means of stimulating job growth.
This July, the Brookings Institution released the results of an ambitious, nationwide research study regarding green jobs. Researchers at Brookings’ Metropolitan Policy Program found that employment in the U.S. clean energy economy totaled 2.7 million, more than that of the fossil fuel industry and significantly more than Pew Center researchers found in its 2007 study.
A number of Brookings’ findings on the jobs front were encouraging as well as significant. Although the “clean economy” as a whole grew more slowly than the overall economy from 2003-2010–3.4 percent vs. 4.2 percent–the clean technology segment “produced explosive job gains, and the clean economy outperformed the nation during the recession,” the Brookings research team found.
Green Sectors with Greatest Job Growth
Overall, clean economy job growth was held back by layoffs in sectors related to housing and construction, both of which were hard hit during the recession of 2007-2008. “Newer clean economy establishments–especially those in young energy-related segments such as wind energy, solar PV, and smart grid–added jobs at a torrid pace, albeit from small bases,” the report’s authors noted.
The eight fastest-growing clean economy sectors surveyed out of a total 39 in terms of job growth during the period were in the clean energy sector. They were: wave/ocean power; solar thermal; wind power; carbon storage and management; solar photovoltaics, or solar PV; fuel cells; biofuels; and smart grid.
In addition, thirteen sectors were categorized in the energy and resource efficiency segment in the Brookings report. Nearly 180,000 jobs were created in this segment between 2003 and 2010. The largest in absolute terms were public transport (82,601) and energy-saving building materials (25,988).
It’s clear that the rapid growth of investment in the green economy is stimulating innovation and generating a wide variety of relatively well-paying jobs. It’s helping build a new manufacturing base and supply chains for the U.S. and adding to exports, which improves our longstanding itrade deficit and supports the flagging U.S. dollar.
Moreover, it helps us deal with the critical, long-term survival issues of natural resource conservation, environmental protection, health and safety, and helps to assure a decent quality, and respect, of life. What is also clear is that U.S. government representatives need to and can do far more when it comes to establishing long-term policies that assure that this momentum not only continues, but builds.
