When CETI released the Net-Zero Northwest Workforce State Analysis earlier this year detailing projected demand for energy jobs on the path to net-zero emissions, one of the main questions we received was, “But how does the projected demand compare with our current energy workforce?” Luckily, thanks to the United States Energy & Employment Report (USEER), we have annual U.S. energy job data to answer that very question, which you can explore with three new visualizations on the Northwest Clean Energy Atlas.
The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Energy Jobs has contracted with BW Research since 2016 to produce the USEER to provide information about national, state, and county-level energy jobs. The annual report draws on data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics and surveys of tens of thousands of U.S. energy sector employers to report data by industry, technology, and region, including information on unionization rates, demographics, and employer perspectives on growth and hiring. The 2024 USEER, released in August, reports on all energy employment data—both clean energy jobs and conventional energy jobs[i]—from 2023.
The USEER categorizes energy jobs into five technology areas, all of which experienced increases in employment in 2023:
In 2023, clean energy sectors nationwide added 142,000 jobs, accounting for more than half of new energy sector jobs and growing more than twice the rate of the U.S. economy overall (4.2% compared to 2.0%). Clean energy jobs now make up 42% of total energy jobs in the country. Additional national highlights include:
Key highlights about energy sector employment in each Northwest state are summarized below.
Idaho had 34,308 energy workers in 2023, representing a 3.7% increase from the previous year. The energy sector in Idaho represents 4.5% of total state employment, including the following breakdown by sector:
Montana had 32,537 energy workers in 2023, a 1.2% increase from the previous year. Despite relatively low net job growth overall, Montana had the second fastest rate of job growth in renewable electric power generation in the country. Montana’s energy jobs represent 6.7% of total state employment, with the following breakdown by sector:
Oregon had 95,972 energy workers in 2023, up 3.8% from the previous year. Energy sector jobs in Oregon represent 4.9% of total state employment. Of these energy jobs:
Washington had 148,022 energy workers in 2023, a 2.4% increase from the previous year. The energy sector in Washington represents 4.2% of total state employment, with the following jobs in each sector:
Energy sector employers in Idaho, Oregon, and Washington are more optimistic than their peers across the country about energy sector job growth over the next year, while those in Montana are less optimistic than their peers, projecting that employment would grow by a lower percent than U.S. expected growth in each technology group. However, past USEER surveys show that employers’ expectations about future employment change are not necessarily reliable indicators for the reality of future changes.
Employers in all four Northwest states experienced a similar range of hiring difficulty, with 39-42% reporting that hiring was either very difficult or somewhat difficult. Approximately 7-8% of surveyed employers reported no difficulty hiring, while 50% did not hire.
Workforce is both a challenge and opportunity on the path to an equitable clean energy transition. Specifically, there are challenges with training workers to meet projected demand, ensuring that clean energy jobs are high quality and provide family-sustaining wages, and attracting a diverse workforce and bringing economic development to communities historically left out of opportunities. Understanding the region's current energy workforce through the 2024 USEER gives us the starting point for crafting solutions to address these barriers to developing a clean energy workforce with equity in mind.
We invite you to explore the USEER data in three new visualizations on the Northwest Clean Energy Atlas:
1. Northwest Energy Jobs by County
2. Northwest Energy Jobs by Subsector
3. Northwest Energy Jobs by Year
You can also find the USEER full report, executive summary, state reports, and data on the 2024 USEER webpage.
[i] Notes on methodology (see details in USEER footnotes and appendices):
In the national report, the USEER defines clean energy jobs as those associated with “net-zero emissions aligned technologies,” which include renewable energy, nuclear, non-fossil energy efficiency, zero emission vehicles, and carbon capture, utilization, and storage. In the state level report, the USEER has a more expansive definition of clean energy jobs that includes all energy efficiency and all traditional transmission and distribution (including that associated with fossil fuels) due to the statistical significance of data at the more detailed geographic levels.
To avoid double counting of energy jobs, the USEER counts a job in whichever technology category that accounts for the majority of an employee’s energy-related work time. Examples: 1) If a worker spends 60% of their time working in solar and 40% of their time working on electric vehicle charging infrastructure, that job would be considered in the solar technology area; 2) If a worker spends 60% of their time on a non-energy technology and 40% of their time on energy efficiency, that job would be counted as an energy efficiency job in USEER; 3) If a worker performs energy-related work for an employer who is not classified as an energy employer, their job would not be counted in the USEER (e.g., a city building code inspector or renewable energy procurement specialist for a software technology).
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