US DOE report highlights red-hot clean energy jobs market in 2023

The US energy sector added over 250,000 jobs in 2023, representing a 3% annual growth rate, or double the overall pace of US employment growth last year, according to a Department of Energy report released Aug. 28.

Clean energy employment increased by 142,000 jobs, accounting for 56% of new energy sector jobs, with a 4.2% annual growth rate driven in part by federal incentives in the Inflation Reduction Act, a $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure law, and the CHIPS and Science Act of 2022.

Nearly 5% of all new jobs created in the US economy in 2023 were in the clean energy sector, which accounted for 42% of the total 8.35 million energy jobs identified by the DOE in 2023. Employment in renewable energy, electric vehicle production, and other clean energy industries rose 3.9% in 2022.

The DOE's annual Energy & Employment Report is based on employer responses to surveys from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics. For the first time, the DOE included a supplemental survey, conducted in 2023, that identified an additional 28,000 jobs in the construction of new clean energy supply chain facilities, such as new or expanded battery and solar panel factories, ports to support offshore wind generation and warehouses for storing clean energy materials.

These jobs are separate and in addition to the DOE's reported totals for the US energy sector.

Strong growth in generation, transmission and storage

US solar employment grew by 18,401 jobs in 2023, a 5.3% increase from 2022. The DOE found that the solar sector's largest job gains were in construction and the utility industry, with utilities adding 50% more solar jobs from 2022.

The US wind industry recorded 4.6% annual employment growth in 2023, adding 5,715 positions. The DOE report noted that 130,239 wind workers were employed in land-based wind, while the remaining 1,088 workers were employed in offshore wind.

Employment in natural gas-fired power generation grew by 4,713 jobs in 2023, or 4% annually. Nuclear power jobs grew 2.8% in 2023, although the nuclear industry's total number of jobs last year — 58,517 — was still lower than in 2019, when employment was 60,916, the DOE report noted.

Jobs in traditional transmission, distribution and energy storage technologies grew 5.4% in 2023, with 52,515 net new jobs. Battery storage, including batteries for electric vehicles and grid-scale energy storage, grew by 3.8% in 2023. The DOE report noted that jobs in electric vehicle charging deployment grew by 25.1% in 2023.

The US coal industry employed 63,180 workers in 2023, a 1.4% decline from 2022. The DOE noted that coal job losses have slowed significantly from a 9.6% drop between 2021 and 2022.

The report highlighted "unprecedented" public investment in the US power grid in 2023, with nearly $5 billion in DOE funding for grid modernization and the facilitation of large-scale power lines in six states.

Record-high unionization rate for clean energy

Unionization rates in clean energy also climbed to a record 12.4% in 2023, surpassing the overall US energy sector's rate of 11% and the private sector's rate of 7%, senior Biden administration officials noted ahead of the report's release.

"Employers working with labor unions were twice as likely as their counterparts to report no difficulty hiring the workforce that they needed," DOE Deputy Secretary David Turk told reporters during an Aug. 27 press call.

"Investing in clean energy isn't just the right thing to do for our planet, it's the right thing to do for our workers, as well."

White House National Climate Advisor Ali Zaidi noted that the Inflation Reduction Act's enhanced federal tax credits for clean energy production, investment and manufacturing require employers to meet prevailing wage and apprenticeship requirements. Tax credit guidance finalized by the US Treasury Department in June also encourages project labor agreements with unions.

"If you want the full tax credits in the Inflation Reduction Act, you better be paying folks a prevailing wage," Zaidi said, noting that 80% of the law's bonus credits are tied to labor standards.

Betony Jones, director of the DOE's Office of Energy Jobs, said the DOE's latest report shows clean energy jobs growth across all 50 states and the District of Columbia. Idaho, Texas and New Mexico saw the highest rates of growth, while Texas, California, North Carolina, Alabama and Michigan had the highest total number of new jobs in clean energy.

"This report really shows us that these policies are working in driving economic activity and job growth in every nook and cranny across the country," Jones said.