The state of global employment in the renewable energy sector

The International Renewable Energy Agency recently reported that 11 million people were employed in renewable energy worldwide in 2018, an increase from 10.3 million the previous year. Although the industry has an increasingly diverse geographical presence, the majority of employment is concentrated in just a handful of countries. China is the clear leader in renewable energy employment, accounting for 4.1 million jobs in its sector last year, 39 percent of the global total. Despite this impressive figure, their total has actually fallen compared to 2017 due to the suspension of subsidies and lower domestic sales.

Brazil is in second place on the list of countries with the largest workforce in the renewable energy sector. As the largest biofuels employer in the world, around 1.1 million people were employed in the renewable energy sector last year. Brazil employs 832,000 people in biofuels and, as it expands its wind and solar activities, the total number is expected to rise further.

Despite President Trump’s pro-coal policies, employment in the US renewable energy sector rose from 786,000 in 2017 to 855,000 in 2018. That was despite a decline in solar jobs for the second year in a row amid uncertainty over the president’s tariff policies and constitutional amendments in California and Massachusetts. Elsewhere, India has seen dramatic gains. It had 432,000 jobs in 2017 and grew to 719,000 in 2018.

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