Despite a decline during the pandemic, creating clean energy remains a big job in the U.S.

In 2020, the number of clean energy jobs in America fell for the first time since 2015. Amid the COVID-19 pandemic and related economic contraction, nearly 307,000 jobs were lost in wind, solar, energy efficiency and other clean energy sectors.

About 3 million Americans worked in clean energy at the end of 2020, down from 3.36 million the year before, according to the analysis of Bureau of Labor Statistics data and the findings of a national survey of more than 35,000 businesses across the U.S. economy.

Despite the overall decline, clean energy remains the biggest job creator across America’s energy sector, employing nearly three times as many workers as work in fossil fuel extraction and generation.

Green (or clean) jobs are either:

• Jobs in businesses that produce goods or provide services that benefit the environment or conserve natural resources.

• Jobs in which workers’ duties involve making their establishment’s production processes more environmentally friendly or use fewer natural resources.

New jobs projected

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics projects job growth in occupations related to helping the environment or conserving natural resources.

Two occupations that BLS projects to have the fastest employment growth from 2016 to 2026 — solar photovoltaic installers (105% increase) and wind turbine service technicians (96%) — involve green work. The number of new jobs is projected to be relatively small in these and some other rapidly growing green occupations.

U.S. clean energy employment, 2020

Clean energy jobs in 2020 accounted for 2.2% of total U.S. employment or more than one in every 50 American workers. Clean energy workers now account for 19% of all construction jobs, more than 5% of jobs in wholesale trade and more than 4% of all manufacturing jobs.

Sources: Bureau of Labor Statistics, BW Research Partnership for the 2021 U.S. Energy and Employment Report, U.S. Department of Energy