Record, but uneven employment in “green” energy
Last year, a record 2.5 million new jobs were created in the renewable energy sector, most of which were in China, according to the latest report by the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) and the International Labor Organization (ILO).
Employment in the sector is also very unevenly distributed geographically.
The number of jobs worldwide in the renewable energy sector increased by 18 percent, from 13.7 million in 2022 to 16.2 million last year.
In China, where almost two-thirds of the world’s new solar and wind power plants will be installed in 2023, 1.84 million jobs were created in the renewable energy sector last year.
A joint report by Abu Dhabi-based IRENA and the Rome-based ILO shows the uneven distribution of the world’s workforce. China with 7.4 million jobs represents 46 percent of all jobs in the sector.
It is followed by the EU with 1.8 million, Brazil with 1.56 million and the USA and India with almost a million jobs in the sector of renewable energy sources.
In Africa, according to the report, there were only 324,000 jobs in the sector last year, although the continent has “huge potential for renewable resources”.
The rapidly growing demand of the energy transition
“The energy transition and its socio-economic gains should not be based on one or two regions,” said IRENA Executive Director Francesco La Camera.
The report also states that solar cells are the largest employer with 7.2 million jobs worldwide, including 4.6 million in China.
Liquid biofuels employ 2.8 million people, a third of them in Brazil, while hydropower jobs are down slightly from 2.5 million in 2022 to 2.3 million compared to last year.
In the field of wind energy, China and Europe account for 52 and 21 percent, respectively, of the 1.5 million global jobs.
The two organizations also stressed that politicians must support measures towards greater workforce diversity and gender equality to meet the growing demands of the energy transition.
Source: Seebiz
Photo: Pixabay
Source: bizlife.rs
