Clean energy jobs grew by 142,000 last year, more than double the growth rate of jobs in the broader U.S. economy and other energy sectors, the U.S. Department of Energy said Wednesday in its annual Energy Industry Jobs Review.
Overall, the energy workforce added more than 250,000 jobs in 2023, with 56% of those jobs in clean energy, according to the U.S. Energy and Employment Report (USEER).
The clean energy industry is increasingly unionized, with 12.4% of the clean energy industry unionized, compared with 11% of the energy industry and 7% of the private sector.
Overall, clean energy jobs grew 4.2% in 2023, compared with 3.8% in 2022. The overall U.S. economy grew 2% in 2023, the DOE said.
Jobs increased in all five of USEER's energy technology categories: power generation, energy efficiency, fuels, motor vehicles, and transmission, distribution and storage, officials said.
Jobs in power generation "grow at a 4% rate in 2023, the fastest of all major energy technologies and nearly double the overall U.S. job growth rate," the report said. Last year, the industry had 900,000 jobs. Solar power had the largest job gain and fastest growth, adding 18,401 workers, or about 5.3%. Onshore wind had the second-largest job gain, adding 5,715 workers, or 4.6%, the report said.
The transmission, distribution and storage (TDS) industry employs more than 1.4 million workers in 2023, according to USEER analysis, and job growth is accelerating, growing 3.8% in 2023, up from 2.2% in 2022. "While 'EV charging' is still a new industry, its growth rate outpaced all other TDS technologies, increasing by 25.1%," the report said. Traditional TDS jobs grew 5.4%.
The fuels industry grew 1.8% to 1.1 million jobs. Renewable diesel and offshore natural gas were the fastest-growing sectors in the industry, growing 7.3% and 4.9%, respectively, the DOE said.
Energy efficiency supported nearly 2.3 million jobs last year, up 3.4%, the report said. "All energy efficiency technology subcategories saw job growth, most notably in conventional heating, ventilation and refrigeration, which added 18,165 jobs, up 3.2%."
The automotive industry was the largest energy technology sector, with employment growing 2.8% to 2.7 million last year. Jobs in clean energy vehicles, which include electric vehicles, plug-in hybrids and hydrogen/fuel cell vehicles, grew 11%.
The report noted that Latino and Hispanic workers and veterans have "made significant gains in the energy sector." In 2023, about a third of new energy jobs and new clean energy jobs are held by Hispanic or Latino workers. Veterans make up 9% of the U.S. energy workforce, more than their 5% share of the economy as a whole.
The report notes that unionization rates in the clean energy sector "surpassed employment in traditional energy for the first time," "driven by rapid growth in the highly unionized construction sector (particularly transmission and distribution) and the utility sector."