The U.S. Department of Energy recently released its annual U.S. Energy & Employment Report, a comprehensive summary of national and state-level workforce, industry and hiring information in the energy sector. The report shows that jobs in the energy sector increased by 300,000 (3.8 percent growth), increasing from 7.8 million to more than 8.1 million in 2022. And although the energy sector was significantly impacted by COVID-19 and its economic fallout last year, it recovered 71 percent of the jobs lost in 2020.
Jobs in the clean energy sector (solar, wind and electric power generation) led to employment increases, accounting for 84 percent of job growth. Electric power generation jobs added 21,000 positions, while zero-emissions vehicles saw nearly 21 percent job growth, adding more than 38,000 jobs.