Green-talent shortage is the squo- training initiatives key

The U.S. is making some progress on this front. Approximately 875,000 Americans already hold jobs related to sustainability, renewable energy, and conservation. Over the next decade, the number of green jobs in the U.S. is expected to grow by another 114,000, or 9%. Specialized green jobs such as wind turbine service technicians and solar photovoltaic installers are projected to increase by more than 50%, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. And roles in climate protection—such as environmental engineering and conservation science—pay significantly higher salaries than the national median wage.

But the demand for green jobs is outpacing the production of green talent. Jobs that require green skills—building blocks such as waste prevention, environmental remediation, and other abilities that promote environmental sustainability of economic abilities—are crucial to this green transformation. A 2022 LinkedIn report found that job postings that require green skills have increased by 8% per year over the past five years, even as the pool of green talent grew by just 6% a year over that same period.

To increase the supply of labor in the emerging green economy, training and recruiting initiatives must be expanded to ensure that workers of all backgrounds have the opportunity to build the skills they need to pursue—and succeed in—these jobs.

Unfortunately, those who stand to benefit most from the booming demand for green skills are also disproportionately represented. Currently, Black and Latinx workers have a smaller share of the clean energy jobs in this country—8% and 16.5%, respectively— than they do in the overall U.S. workforce (compared to 13% and 18% economy-wide). It’s the same story with women, who represent nearly half of the U.S. workforce but hold only about a quarter of clean energy jobs.

Although millennials and Generation Z say they’re extremely concerned about a coming climate catastrophe, they are also underrepresented in the green economy. A recent survey of teenagers and young adults around the world found only one in ten said they had applied to or currently have a job that addresses climate change. Only about one in three said they have the skills necessary for jobs in the new green economy. Nearly 30% said they didn’t know where they could find a green job.

Preventing this looming shortage of green skills has to start with increasing awareness not just of the urgent need for action but also the need for quality jobs in the green economy. One way to expand awareness is to broaden the idea that green jobs are not only technical jobs in the wind, solar, or climate fields, but all jobs that require green skills to be performed. Those jobs include facilities managers, risk advisers, safety technicians, and so on.