Job boards like the one that Renewable Energy Vermont has launched will be important to connect newly qualified workers with jobs, said Bob Keefe, executive director of E2, an environmental advocacy group that tracks clean energy workforce trends. But their impact will be limited without more investment in training workers who don’t yet have the skills needed.
“Employers are looking for workers, but most importantly they’re looking for qualified workers,” Keefe said.
Nearly 307,000 clean energy jobs were lost in the country last year due to the pandemic, leaving the total number of Americans working in fields such as solar development and energy efficiency at about 3 million, according to E2’s latest clean jobs report.