Clean energy jobs increased at about double the rate of overall employment in 2023, with Republican-led states seeing some of the highest rates of growth, the Biden administration announced Wednesday.
The incentives from the Inflation Reduction Act and infrastructure bill, combined with the first serious spike in U.S. electricity demand in decades, appear to have buoyed the energy industry, even as hiring slowed in many other sectors of the economy, according to this year’s new Department of Energy employment report.
The new energy jobs numbers reflect the investment data and tax data: The energy economy is continuing to undergo a significant transformation, even as oil and gas remain important. Consumers and businesses have invested about $493 billion in the clean economy over the first two years of the IRA, and that has translated to more than half of all new energy sector jobs going toward clean energy. In the electricity industry, that number is more like 80%, according to the new data.