The US solar industry currently supports just over 119,000 jobs, an increase of over 13% in the last year, according to figures released by The Solar Foundation ahead of its annual jobs census.
The National Solar Jobs Census 2012, which will be published in full next week by The Solar Foundation, in partnership with BW Research and Cornell University, will show that 1 in 230 jobs created nationally last year were in the solar sector.
Meanwhile, across the US economy as a whole, employment grew just 2.3% according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics and in the fossil fuel sector shed nearly 4000 jobs amounting to 3.8% of the workforce.
The report puts the increase of nearly 14,000 jobs down to falling panel prices, state incentives for renewable power and federal tax incentives for consumers.
“The solar industry has grown at significantly higher rates than most other industries in the past several years, making it one of the foremost creators of new jobs in the US,” says Andrea Luecke, executive director of the Foundation.
Most of those jobs are highly skilled, according to the report, in installation, sales, marketing and software development.
The full report will be released on November 14 at the Clean Energy Workforce Education Conference in Albany, New York.
For further information:
thesolarfoundation.org/research/national-solar-jobs-census-2012
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Article source: http://www.energyefficiencynews.com/i/5513/
