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The world’s renewable energy industry, including hydropower, employed more than 9.8 million people worldwide, according to IRENA’s new report, Renewable Energy and Jobs – Annual Review 2017. PV industry employed nearly 3.1 million people around the world, topping the list of the whole renewable energy industry.
“Falling costs and enabling policies have steadily driven up investment and employment in renewable energy worldwide since IRENA’s first annual assessment in 2012, when just over seven million people were working in the sector,” said IRENA Director-General Adnan Z. Amin.
He added, “Renewables are directly supporting broader socio-economic objectives, with employment creation increasingly recognized as a central component of the global energy transition.”
In 2012, the renewable energy industry employed about seven million people worldwide. This figure increased to 9.8 million – very close to the 10-million milestone – in 2016. IRENA further expects that the number of people working in the sector could reach 24 million by 2030, which will be enough for offsetting job losses in fossil-fuel sector caused by energy transition.
PV hired the most
IRENA’s report shows that PV industry was the largest employer in 2016, with 3.1 million jobs, representing a 12% growth from 2015. These jobs were mainly distributed in China, the United States and India. In the United States, jobs in the PV industry increased 17 times faster than the overall economy, growing 24.5% from the previous year to over 260,000.
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The second largest employer was wind industry, which contributed 1.2 million jobs mainly in Brazil, China, the United States and India. The third, forth, and fifth employers were biofuels (1.7 million jobs), biomass (0.7 million jobs), and biogas (0.3 million jobs), respectively.
Hydropower supplied a huge volume of installation capacity as well as generation to the global renewable energy sector, while the employees were 1.5 million, still less than PV industry. IRENA’s Annual Review 2017 report is the first report that includes large hydropower data.
The report finds that globally, 62% of the jobs are located in Asia. Installation and manufacturing jobs continue to shift to the region, particularly Malaysia and Thailand, which has become global center for solar PV fabrication.