5 Key Insights on the State of US Clean Energy Jobs

As a major source of new jobs, the clean energy industry represents an innovative and vital sector of the U.S. workforce. Workers with job titles like solar installer, energy storage engineer, battery manufacturing technician, energy efficiency auditor, electric vehicle charger maintenance worker and wind turbine technician, are all part of a workforce whose growth is outpacing overall employment growth despite overall economic slowdown and recessionary conditions in parts of the U.S.

However, policy reversals by the Trump administration are creating an unpredictable environment for clean energy investors and developers, slowing the industry’s rapid growth and risking billions of dollars in investment and thousands of jobs. U.S. renewable energy investment fell by 36% in the first half of 2025 compared to the same period last year. This decline happened despite record-high global investment in renewables during the same period.

Here we used the last several years of data from the annual U.S. Department of Energy’s Energy and Employment Report to better understand the state and outlook of U.S. clean energy jobs in the U.S. By deciphering and classifying energy jobs between “clean energy” and “traditional” categories we’ve been able to gain a clearer perspective on how critical clean energy jobs are to the nation’s labor market.

Here are five key findings from our analysis:

1) Clean Energy Jobs Have Been Outperforming the Rest of the Labor Market

Driven by increased investment, rising energy demand and government policies that accelerated the transition to a clean energy economy, clean energy jobs grew by nearly 12%, going from 3.2 million workers in 2021 to 3.6 million by the end of 2024. Across the country, 22 out of every 1,000 workers were employed in clean energy-related positions in 2024. During the same period, the broader U.S. job market only grew by only 8%. 

It is especially interesting to note that clean energy employment grew by 3% from 2023 to 2024, while the total U.S. workforce only grew by 1%, after factoring in record-breaking downward revision to the national jobs data, suggesting the U.S. labor market was significantly weaker over the past couple of years than previously believed.