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Report: U.S. Must Do More to Prevent Loss of Clean Energy Manufacturing Jobs

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Winning the Race – How America Can Lead the Global Clean Energy Economy, March 2010.

  • “During the last decade, some 5.7 million U.S. manufacturing jobs disappeared, many of them sent overseas. During the current recession alone, which began in December 2007, the U.S. lost more than two million manufacturing jobs. The loss of these jobs is particularly concerning because manufacturing jobs tend to be good jobs, paying an average of $25,000 more per year than service sector jobs and providing benefits like health insurance. They have also traditionally provided a ticket into the middle class for the 68 percent of working Americans without four-year college degrees. Many Americans had hoped that the growth of the domestic clean energy economy would stem the tide of manufacturing job loss. As cities, states and the federal government enact measures to improve their energy efficiency and shift toward the use of renewable energy, it creates demand for products like solar panels, wind turbines, energy-efficient windows and electric car batteries…unlike green construction, operation and maintenance jobs—much of the manufacture of clean energy systems can take place anywhere in the world. Indeed, clean energy manufacturing jobs are already going overseas, and have been for some time. The Apollo Alliance estimates that some 70 percent of America’s renewable energy systems and components are manufactured abroad. If America continues to import 70 percent of the clean energy systems and component parts demanded by new investments in renewable energy, it stands to lose out on an estimated 100,000 clean energy manufacturing jobs between now and 2015, and potentially a quarter million manufacturing jobs by 2030.”
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