Clean energy jobs dinged in pandemic
The clean energy sector in the Bay State lost over 8,000 jobs during the pandemic, a hit state officials attribute to supply chain and labor issues in a part of the economy they expect to rebound in the future.
“We will need to continue to grow and develop a welltrained and qualified clean energy workforce and one that includes individuals and communities who have been historically underrepresented,” Mass Clean Energy Center CEO Jennifer Daloisio offered Thursday, as Gov. Charlie Baker’s administration released the center’s annual industry report for 2021.
Clean energy jobs employed nearly 114,000 workers at the end of 2019, according to the report. After the onset of COVID-19 based restrictions, by the end of 2021, there were about 106,000 clean energy workers.
“While a full recovery has been delayed in part due to ongoing pandemic uncertainty and supply chain and labor shortage constraints, the state did see some modest gains in wind energy, electric vehicles, and energy storage,” Daloisio said.
This is the first reported jobs decline in the clean energy sector since the center started counting industry workers in 2010, but Daloisio said that recovery since the pandemic demonstrates that clean energy jobs aren’t going away permanently and the industry is still doing very well in Massachusetts.
The sector in Massachusetts boasts the highest median pay for the industry in the country.
Between 2010 and 2020 clean energy added over 40,000 jobs, representing nearly one-quarter of all jobs gained in the state during that time.
To demonstrate the vitality of the industry, Baker and Daloisio joined Secretary of Energy and Environmental Affairs Kathleen Theoharides at the MassCEC Wind Technology Testing Center in Boston on Thursday. That facility, Baker said, is proof positive that the industry is alive and thriving in the Commonwealth.
Funded in part by federal government COVID stimulus, the turbine and wind blade testing facility came to be precisely due to the staying power of the industry, Baker said.
“This project and this facility was a multiyear effort. I think it’s important to remember that when you are in the process of building what is for all intents and purposes a new industry, it’s important that people recognize the importance of both public investment and innovation,” Baker said.
Baker said the funding would not have come had not the work and workers been in place for the project to begin. Now the facility is one of a kind in North America designed for endurance testing on wind turbine blades, according to Daloisio
“In many respects one of the things we need to appreciate about clean energy generally and about new innovation in particular in clean energy is you need to be able to play to and appreciate where the future is going,” he said.