If you're looking to switch careers, you may want to look towards the sun… or listen to the wind. BUSINESS INSIDER — A new report, published by the Environmental Defense Fund's Climate Corps program, says that solar and wind jobs are growing at a rate 12 times as fast as the rest of the US economy and that 46% of large firms have hired additional workers to address issues of sustainability over the past two years.
“Wind turbine technician” is now the fastest-growing profession in the US. The growth in wind power is just one example of the rising employment numbers associated with the clean energy and sustainability sector. The industry now has at least 4 million jobs, up from 3.4 million in 2011. According to the EDF report, the annual growth rate of employment in the fossil-fuel industry was -4.5% from 2012 to 2015. Renewable-energy jobs had a growth rate of 6% during that period. Oil and gas production jobs increased in November 2016 for the first time in two years, following a slump caused by low oil prices. The average number of employees at US coal mines dropped by 12% in 2015, according to the Energy Information Administration. When it comes to electricity generation in the US, the Department of Energy's 2017 Energy and Employment Report suggests that the solar industry now employs more people than coal, oil, and gas combined. "Our findings would lead us to believe that the right place to invest dollars are in renewable energy rather than fossil fuels," Delaney says. "These jobs are widely geographically distributed, they're high paying, they apply to both manufacturing and professional workers, and there are a lot of them." Delaney says one of the most surprising findings of the EDF report is that 70% of the 2.2 million Americans who work in jobs related to energy efficiency are employed by companies with 10 employees or fewer. "What we're talking about here are American small businesses," she says, adding that because many sustainability jobs involve installation, maintenance, and construction, they're harder to outsource. Though federal subsidies and tax credits have helped foster the growth of solar and wind power in the US — thereby adding jobs in those industries — much of the trend is due to the falling prices of both technologies. The EDF's report suggests the cost of production for solar PV panels dropped 72% from 2010 to 2015, making solar power much more competitive in the energy market. Solar deployment, consequently, has expanded tenfold since 2010, from to 10,727 megawatts installed annually from 876. The Department of Energy's Energy and Employment Report predicts that energy-efficiency employment will have a 9% growth rate over the next 12 months — higher than any other energy sector.
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