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The Inflation Reduction Act Drives Clean Energy Jobs Surge
Clean energy companies added almost 150,000 jobs in 2023, growing more than three times faster than overall U.S. employment to 3,460,406 clean energy jobs nationwide. Last year’s jobs spike corresponds with the first full year of historic clean energy investments and incentives under the landmark federal Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). Only the post-pandemic recovery surge of 2021 (152,000 jobs) added more new jobs in a single year.
Every clean energy sector grew at least twice as fast as overall national employment. Clean vehicles saw double-digit growth for the third consecutive year. Energy efficiency continued to lead the clean economy in total jobs. Jobs in manufacturing and other services (including vehicle maintenance and repair) accounted for nearly 60 percent of all new clean energy jobs.
Over the past three years, clean energy jobs increased 14 percent to nearly 3.5 million workers. By comparison, that’s more jobs than there are nurses nationwide. The 149,170 new clean energy jobs created in 2023 accounted for 6.4 percent of all jobs created economywide, and nearly 60 percent of all jobs in the entire energy sector.
This growth sets the stage for the next several years as the industry begins to feel the full impact from historic investments and incentives in the IRA. Three hundred and forty major new clean energy projects have been announced across 40 states and Puerto Rico since the IRA passed. In those announcements, companies have said they are creating more than 109,000 new jobs while investing over $126 billion in private-sector capital.
Most Clean Energy Jobs | STATES
Most Clean Energy Jobs | COUNTIES
Most Clean Energy Jobs | METROS
*Total clean energy jobs includes employment in energy efficiency, renewable energy, clean fuels, clean vehicles, and storage and grid modernization
Clean Energy Jobs Breakdown
Clean Energy Jobs
by Sector
Main
CE Sectors
Value Chain
Added Sectors
Total Energy
Economy 2023
Clean Energy Jobs
by Sector
Main
CE Sectors
1605949
CONSTRUCTION Workers Employed in Clean Energy
440547
RURAL Clean Energy Jobs
42576
Clean Energy MANUFACTURING Jobs Added
3052
COUNTIES Home to Clean Energy Jobs
Credit: NREL/Dennis Schroeder
Go Deeper on Clean Energy Jobs
August 14, 2024
Two years after the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) was signed into law on August 16, 2022, companies have announced at least 334 major new clean energy and clean vehicle projects across 40 states.
November 1, 2023
Large-scale clean energy projects announced in the first year of the IRA are estimated to create more than 400,000 new jobs and hundreds of billions of dollars in new wages, tax revenues, and economic growth, according to a first-of-its kind economic analysis.
October 19, 2022
33 percent of all billion dollar disaster costs since 1980 in the U.S have occurred in the last 5 years, totaling $765 billion in losses and more than 4,500 deaths from 2017 to 2021—were nearly eight times higher than in the 1980s.
October 22, 2020
Clean energy jobs paid 25% more than the national median wage in 2019 and were more likely to include health care and retirement benefits.
Credit: NREL/McKinstry
About this Report
The analysis expands on employment data collected and analyzed by the BW Research Partnership for the 2024 U.S. Energy and Employment Report (USEER) released by the Department of Energy (DOE). The USEER analyzes data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (QCEW) to track employment across many energy production, transmission, and distribution subsectors. For more information on the methodology click here.
This is the ninth annual Clean Jobs America report produced by E2 based on analysis of the USEER, which was first released by the DOE in 2016. E2 was an original proponent of the DOE producing the USEER, and was a partner on the 2018, 2019, and 2020 reports produced by the Energy Futures Initiative (EFI) and National Association of State Energy Officials (NASEO) after the DOE chose not to produce a USEER.
JOB DENSITY
Clean energy job density calculations for congressional districts used the U.S. Census Bureau 2023 County Business Patterns and the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) 2023 Q4 QCEW employment data, analyzed and extrapolated by BW Research.
WHAT JOBS WE INCLUDE
We include are jobs in solar energy, wind energy, combined heat and power, bioenergy, non-woody biomass, low-impact hydro power, geothermal, electric vehicles, hybrid electric vehicles, plug-in hybrid vehicles, hydrogen and fuel-cell vehicles, clean energy storage, smart grid, micro grid, grid modernization, advanced biofuels, and energy efficiency including ENERGY STAR® and high efficiency appliances, efficient lighting, HVAC, renewable heating and cooling, and advanced building materials. The clean energy occupations covered in this report span economic sectors including agriculture, utilities, construction, manufacturing, wholesale trade, professional services, other services.
WHAT WE DO NOT INCLUDE
We do not include are jobs of workers who may spend some of their time in clean energy but a plurality in another energy sector. For example, workers employed by an excavation business might spend the majority of their time grading and preparing drilling pads for oil or gas rigs, but they also might spend a portion of their time preparing sites for wind turbines or large solar installations. If clean energy does not account for a plurality of their work, those workers would not be counted as being employed in the clean energy economy but would instead be counted as part of another energy sector. We also do not include any jobs in traditional transmission and distribution due to an inability to accurately segment out workers by electricity source, despite many of those jobs being critical to the increased electricity from renewable energy used by the grid. Lastly, we do not include jobs in corn ethanol, woody biomass, large or traditional hydroelectric, and nuclear because of environmental issues associated with those industries. Jobs in retail trade, repair services, water or waste management, and indirect employment or induced employment are also not included.
