Powering Forward: Resilient Workforce Strategies for the US Clean Energy Transition

The transition to a clean energy economy is transforming labor markets, making workforce adaptability critical to sustaining long-term industry growth.

New clean energy policies can rapidly increase labor demand, while global material shortages and trade policies can delay projects and disrupt hiring. At the same time, seismic megatrends such as soaring electricity demand, digitalization, artificial intelligence and demographic changes are reshaping where people live and how they work.

As this political and economic uncertainty becomes the norm for the clean energy industry, experts at the intersection of clean energy and workforce development are calling for a “resilient clean energy workforce.”

But what does a “resilient clean energy workforce” mean?

Rather than training workers only for skills relevant to highly niche jobs, this concept relies on two core principles:

• Broad-based skills development: Equipping workers with adaptable, transferable skills so they can pivot between technologies and sectors as labor market demands shift.
• Reducing barriers: Creating equitable, supportive strategies that address systemic barriers, creating opportunity for all interested workers to participate in the clean energy economy.

Using insights from more than a dozen expert consultations and the latest research, we examine the obstacles and opportunities to building a resilient clean energy workforce.

No Single Unified Data Source Tells the Whole Clean Energy Jobs Story

A widely acknowledged hurdle in the green and clean energy economy is that no universal definition or standardized tracking of clean energy jobs exists. Researchers, government agencies and industry groups often use different criteria and have come to different conclusions about the share of green and clean energy jobs in the economy or how many jobs have been created.

Two approaches are commonly used to define green and clean energy jobs — top-down, industry-focused and bottom-up, occupation-focused (both described below). While both approaches have limitations, each might be better suited for a different analytical need.

The top-down, industry-focused approach measures green and clean energy employment by reviewing entire establishments or industries that produce green and clean energy goods and services using the North American Industry Classification System (NAICS), a standardized 2- to 6-digit hierarchical coding system that classifies business establishments based on their primary economic activity and production processes. However, NAICS inherently lumps emerging clean energy sectors into broad legacy categories. There are no separate NAICS codes for hybrid and electric vehicle manufacturing, smart grid technology or green building construction. Energy efficiency work overlaps heavily with general construction, making it impossible to separate a "clean" energy retrofit from a standard remodel.

Earlier state agency analyses used the NAICS system (see examples from Washington, California, and Maine) to measure clean energy jobs by mapping subsets of existing industry codes to clean energy sectors, such as solar power generation (NAICS 221114) or battery manufacturing (NAICS 335911). Other studies have used the NAICS system as a foundational framework, combining it with other data sources to measure clean energy jobs. The annual U.S. Energy Employment Report (USEER) supplements NAICS codes with targeted employer surveys to isolate the exact percentage of a company’s revenue or workforce dedicated to clean energy technologies.

Survey data, as those used to supplement USEER, are subject to self-reporting bias, varying response rates and higher margins of error for smaller geographies or niche technology subgroups. The reliance on expensive, detailed surveys to separate out green and clean production also make it harder for states and local governments to implement this approach.

The bottom-up, occupation-focused approach, using Standard Occupational Classification and O*NET, is more widely used in economic and labor research to identify and quantify green and clean energy jobs. This approach goes back to 2009 when O*NET, sponsored by the U.S. Department of Labor, identified occupations impacted by the green and clean energy transition. Grouped into three categories, these occupations are:

1. Green increased-demand occupations such as electricians, who will see growing demand for their services as deployment of renewable energy and energy-efficient electrical systems increase, but will not see significant changes in their core skills.
2. Green-enhanced skills occupations, such as roofers installing environmentally sustainable systems, where essential duties remain, but green technologies alter required skills and tasks.
3. Green new and emerging occupations, such as solar photovoltaic installers, weatherization installers and technicians, and geothermal technicians, created because new technologies require new skills.

The occupation-focused approach has limitations, too. First, it doesn’t account for workers who only spend part of their time on clean energy tasks. Second, it assumes that all workers in a specific occupation are doing green or clean energy work, even if they actually work in a non-green industry.

“Electricians do a lot of things and some of those things are clean energy and some of them aren’t,” said Kate Gordon, chief executive of CA Forward, a think tank focused on driving a more sustainable, resilient and inclusive economy across California. “A person could go install a hot tub in the morning and then install a heat pump in the afternoon. It is really hard to break that out.”

Rather than precisely counting green or clean energy jobs, Gordon and several other experts we spoke to suggested discarding the notion of a static green job and instead ensuring research focuses on how the transition is affecting workers and their occupations.

“If we are good at the clean energy transition, then an electrician who works on hot tubs and heat pumps is going to do more and more heat pump work and then they'll basically become a clean energy worker. Accurately counting the clean energy worker isn't the most important issue. The most important issue is: Are you transitioning the economy?” Gordon said.

Simply counting jobs also fails to address “the more granular needs of individual workers,” said Joe Kane, a workforce researcher and former fellow at the Brookings Institution. “What sort of education and training do they need? Projections and job creation estimates don’t really shed too much light on that aspect, in my opinion.” We explore this concept in more detail, below.

Different approaches to understanding the green and clean energy labor market are complementary and can be used in different contexts. For example, policymakers, labor advocates and environmental organizations rely on the USEER analysis to identify which clean energy jobs are growing and where to advocate for new legislation and policies to accelerate the clean energy transition. On the other hand, government, community colleges, trade schools and other training providers can use the occupation-focused approach to build localized workforce and training programs because it analyzes data based on job skills rather than what the company produces.

Broad Skills Development Helps Workers Adapt, but Identifying Transferable Skills Remains a Challenge

By emphasizing broad, transferable skills over highly specialized, single-job proficiencies, workers can easily pivot between sectors, shielding regional economies from localized downturns, technological disruptions and cyclical shocks.

There is a well-established consensus in labor economics that the transferability of a worker’s skills is the primary determinant for predicting their economic resilience and mobility. If a worker loses their job to an economic shock (e.g., automation) or policy changes, highly transferable skills allow them to easily pivot and find a new role. These workers typically experience smaller wage drops when changing jobs.

The industry experts we consulted emphasized the need for building diverse and broadly applicable skills to help students and job seekers navigate the up and down nature of transitions and the labor market.

“One of the pivots that I'm seeing now is the need to make sure that skills currency is there, and people know how to speak about the skills that they're gaining regardless of where it's going to be applied,” said Sarah Bennett from the CREST Initiative at Jobs for the Future. “And that's true for a lot of our folks who are training EV battery technicians or EV installation and maintenance charging stations right now where their skills are applicable as electricians or as advanced manufacturing workers. We need to make sure that individuals themselves are competitive outside of a single job title, outside of a single sector and that we are equipping them to have the language to be able to talk about it.”

States are increasingly recognizing the need to train workers for transferable, broad-based skills rather than narrow occupations. Ohio and Indiana are implementing strategies that focus on cross-industry, foundational manufacturing skills to help workers pivot between EVs, semiconductor, aerospace and general machinery sectors. Instead of focusing solely on equipping internal combustion engine workers for the EV industry, Ohio’s educational and training pathways are focusing on building skills, such as digital literacy, data management and electronics.

Michigan’s Energy Workforce Development Consortium offers another example. The partnership takes a collaborative approach, creating programs that address the needs of multiple employers, while simultaneously building transferable skills among workers.

“What we do is we go by an 80% to 20% rule, that within the consortium typically there's about 80% of the skills and competencies that are needed by all employers,” said one of the workforce experts we spoke with from the Michigan state government. The remaining 20% is then tailored to the needs of a specific company.

A few organizations have developed resources to aid job seekers and employers. The Center for Energy Workforce Development and the Interstate Renewable Energy Council have mapped career pathways focused on renewable energy and energy efficiency industries. Interactive maps, such as the Solar Career Map and the Green Buildings Career Map, chart dozens of occupations, potential advancement routes and required credentials. For example, these maps show how baseline skills can translate into roles in other industries. The Skills Matching Explorer by Resources for the Future is designed to help coal, oil and natural gas workers find matching, high-growth and well-paying jobs in other industries.

However, these tools are static, taxonomy-based guides mapping out career pathways and transferable skills. They do not provide dynamic labor market information that shows changes in occupational demand or skills gap at the granular geographic level. Workforce planners and policymakers are increasingly using proprietary platforms like Lightcast and Julius Education for granular, subnational forecasting that help companies, educators and governments make informed workforce decisions.

Skilled Trades Workers — the Backbone of the Clean Energy Transition — Face Severe Shortages and Localized Data Gaps

Hands-on technical careers that require specialized training rather than a four-year college degree will form the backbone of the clean energy economy, physically building and maintaining clean power systems and infrastructure. These trades jobs, which include electricians, ironworkers, welders, cutters, solderers, braziers and HVAC technicians, are rarely pictured when people think of green or clean energy jobs. Many skilled trades predate the modern green and clean energy economy. Because they are not “new” job categories, their vital role in clean energy infrastructure is underreported.

“If you only focus on the clean energy industry, you might be missing a lot of adjacent and important occupations,” said workforce researcher Kane. “We’re going to need electricians; we’re going to need HVAC technicians. How we talk about that, how we measure that, and how we communicate that is really important.”

Beyond the skilled trades, the clean energy industry relies heavily on white-collar professionals, such as lawyers, accountants, insurance agents and environmental permitting specialists. However, the experts we consulted particularly focused on the critical role of the skilled trades in making the energy transition successful.

Trades jobs offer shorter training periods via apprenticeships, vocational training and short-term certificates, as well as lower costs and faster entry into the workforce than traditional routes. Trades jobs also provide stable, well-paid careers for individuals and an adaptable talent pipeline that can seamlessly shift between different energy technologies — skills between electricians, HVAC technicians and solar photovoltaic installers are highly transferable, though specific additional certifications may be required for each. When clean energy projects experience delays, skilled trades workers can shift to other lucrative construction, maintenance or upgrade projects, preventing prolonged unemployment.

However, the U.S. is facing a significant shortage of skilled trades workers as more experienced workers reach retirement age faster than the younger generation can replace them. For decades, societal norms pushed a four-year college degree as the primary pathway to success. Now, a growing number of Americans are beginning to view the skilled trades as an equally valid path to success.

The demand for trade jobs is expected to remain high to support the clean energy transition and booming construction of AI data centers, though debates surround the true scale and longevity of data center employment impacts. Gordon of CA Forward noted that the risk of white-collar automation may encourage more young Americans to pursue careers in skilled trades as many of these kind of jobs are seen as “AI-proof.” Leading companies such as BlackRock and Google are investing heavily in skilled trades workforce development to prevent labor shortages from derailing the country's infrastructure and AI buildout.

Locating these specific opportunities is complicated by hyper-local market dynamics. Analyses may show a massive demand for electricians nationally, but macro-level data fail to show exactly which counties or cities need those workers. Many opportunities are passed through word-of-mouth and personal networks, bypassing mainstream and scraper-based job boards. This frequently fails to capture the true picture of the local skilled labor market.

Finally, the entry path for trades jobs relies on apprenticeships, specialized vocational schools and direct employer hiring. Unlike college degrees, there is no standardized central database for tracking these vocational credentials, which can make it difficult to accurately track incoming talent, project localized labor shortages or allocate funding efficiently.   

Wrap-Around Services Help Support the Clean Energy Workforce

Technical training is only the first step. Many individuals, especially those from disadvantaged and vulnerable communities, face barriers that make it difficult to maintain employment or even participate in training programs. Gender and racial gaps in the U.S. energy sector continue to persist. According to one analysis, as of 2025, close to three-quarters of the U.S. energy workforce identified as male or white.

“What I've seen in working with participant populations is they need support,” the Michigan workforce expert said. “There are so many of our learners who have barriers to getting to education. It could be whether they're taking care of parents, whether they're taking care of children, whether it's the weather or transportation.”

Extensive analysis confirms that wrap-around services, such as transportation, childcare, meals and housing assistance, help ensure that workers have the necessary support system to start a job and remain employed for the long haul. However, fiscal constraints and shifting legislative priorities can push them to the back burner.

As most clean energy jobs require on-site construction, retrofitting and infrastructure development, transportation to job sites can be a significant barrier for industry workers. Many jobs are also emerging in suburban or rural areas where land is plentiful for siting large clean energy projects, but there’s inadequate public transit for the potential city-based workforce. Upfront costs associated with purchasing, insuring and maintaining a vehicle are frequently prohibitive for entry-level trainees or those transitioning from unemployment.

Madelyn Koch from Philadelphia Energy Authority’s workforce development team highlighted how this challenge impacted the decisions they made in creating training programs around solar projects: “There’s strong demand for solar energy in both urban and rural areas. The issue with that is our program graduates experienced transportation barriers,” she said. “Public transportation is not great in terms of getting folks outside of the region and many of our graduates don't have cars or a driver's license. So, we expanded our focus more on the clean energy space broadly in terms of energy efficiency, focusing on HVAC and green residential construction.”

Governments, labor alliances and the private sector are recognizing the need to incorporate wrap-around services into their programs by combining state, federal, private and philanthropic dollars to address these challenges. For example, the Michigan Auto Workforce Hub created the Reliable Rides playbook, which helps employers implement transportation solutions (like vanpools or car-sharing programs) to get workers to their jobs. The state is also supporting small and medium-sized manufacturers by providing pilot grants of up to $20,000 each to launch localized employee transportation programs.

The industry and workforce experts we spoke with also highlighted the need to identify solutions for tackling less visible obstacles that can impede job performance or career development. These include building communities of practice where there are opportunities to meet others who look similar and where individuals, particularly from underrepresented groups, can openly discuss their challenges and network to identify career opportunities and mentors or build a network with fellow students or jobseekers.

“I'll give you one example that really moved me from a few years ago: An individual came to me and said, ‘Do you know anyone from my demographic group in clean energy?’ The individual said he needed a role model and wanted to be mentored but did not know someone he was comfortable with,” explained Richenda Van Leeuwen, the executive director of the Clean Energy Leadership Institute (a highly regarded national fellowship program for emerging young leaders) and a longtime clean energy leader. “The barriers can be invisible barriers, such as if nobody else in the leadership looks like you, then who do you go to for mentoring?”

Steering the Clean Energy Transition with Data-Driven Agility

As the clean energy transition intersects with other megatrends like digitalization and AI, workforce development must be as agile as the energy systems being built. Developing a resilient clean energy workforce will require many things, but a foundational element is a continuous, data-driven strategy. As policies and technology priorities fluctuate, decision-makers can't rely on static forecasting. Instead, building a truly resilient clean energy workforce requires access to localized labor data, the ability to anticipate skill shortages and surpluses to dynamically adjust training pipelines and to validate transferable skills that empower workers to thrive — no matter what shifts tomorrow brings.

A collaborative ecosystem is required to facilitate a sustained, equitable and predictable clean energy workforce. While federal agencies and state governments, private technology and energy companies, and philanthropy are prime catalysts to provide critical investments, educational institutions, organized labor and non-profit organizations are essential in delivering the data-driven foundation for the U.S. clean energy economy.

WRI Managing Editor Alicia Cypress contributed to this article.