REPORT: Southern States Lead Surge in Clean Energy Jobs, Propelled by Inflation Reduction Act
Clean energy and clean vehicle companies added nearly 150,000 jobs in the first full year of the federal Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), boosting the total number of clean energy workers in United States to nearly 3.5 million, according to the ninth annual Clean Jobs America report released by the national, nonpartisan business group E2.
No region added more jobs and at a faster rate than the South. From Texas to Virginia, Southern states added more than 54,000 clean energy jobs—36 percent of all new jobs—while states in the Midwest, Northeast, and West combined to add 95,000 jobs. Overall, the South now accounts for more than 1 million jobs across the clean vehicle, renewables energy, energy efficiency, battery storage, grid modernization, and biofuel sectors—more than any other region.
E2’s annual Clean Jobs America reports have tracked U.S. clean energy job growth since 2015. BW Research Partnership conducted the latest data analysis, based on the U.S. Department of Energy’s U.S. Energy Employment Report (USEER), which E2 helped create and which tracks employment across all energy related occupations. BW Research also collected and analyzed the data used in the USEER.
Boosted by the more than 340 major clean energy projects announced since the passage of the IRA, clean energy jobs grew by nearly 4.5 percent last year, accounting for about one in every 16 jobs added across the U.S. economy. By comparison, the overall economy added jobs at a 1.5 percent clip last year, according data from the Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (QCEW) published by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). New clean energy jobs accounted for almost 60 percent of all energy-related jobs added in 2023, bringing clean energy’s share of the overall energy industry workforce to more than four out of every 10 workers.
“Thanks to the game-changing policies and incentives created by the IRA, clean energy companies are leading an American economic revolution the likes of which we haven’t seen in generations,” said Bob Keefe, executive director of E2 and author of the recently released book about the IRA and its impacts: “Clean Economy NOW: Stories from the Frontlines of an American Business Revolution.”
“But we’re just getting started,” Keefe said, “The biggest threats to this unprecedented progress are misguided efforts to repeal or rollback parts of the IRA, despite the law’s clear benefits both to American workers and the communities where they live.”
California, Texas and Florida continue to lead the country in total clean energy jobs. But with the South leading the way in new clean energy projects announced since the IRA, Alabama, Kentucky, Texas, Oklahoma were the fastest-growing states for clean energy jobs, based on percentage increases.
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The spike in clean energy jobs included 42,000 new manufacturing jobs and nearly 41,000 jobs in clean vehicles. Since the IRA was signed into law in August 2022, more than 200 new large-scale manufacturing projects — primarily in the electric vehicle and battery sectors — have been announced nationwide. Energy efficiency, which employs more clean energy workers than any other sector of the energy economy – including fossil fuels - added the most overall jobs (75,000).
Energy efficiency remains the top sector for U.S. clean energy jobs, with about 2.3 million workers. That’s followed by renewable generation (560,000) and clean vehicles (410,000).
When broken down by industry, construction accounted for the most total jobs with more than 1.6 million, followed by professional services (740,000) and manufacturing (534,000).
Methodology
This analysis of U.S. clean energy employment is based on employment data collected and analyzed by the BW Research Partnership for the 2024 U.S. Energy and Employment Report (USEER). 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. In addition, the 2023 USEER relies on a unique supplemental survey of 42,000 business representatives across the United States. Created and conducted by BW Research, the methodology has been approved by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). This survey is used to identify energy-related employment within key subsectors of the broader industries as classified by the BLS and to assign them into their component energy and energy efficiency sectors.