Is wind energy good or bad for jobs?

What The Science Says:
Wind power is a fast-growing industry, employing roughly 120,000 U.S. workers in 2021 and creating roughly 5,400 new jobs (up 4.7%) since 2019.

Climate Myth: Wind energy is bad for U.S. jobs
"Subsidised wind and solar destroy far more jobs than they ever 'create'" (Stop these things)

Wind power is a fast-growing industry, creating many U.S. jobs. In 2021, wind energy production employed roughly 120,000 U.S. workers, creating roughly 5,400 new jobs (up 4.7%) since 2019.¹ The Department of Energy suggests that this sector could employ as many as 600,000 U.S. workers by 2050.² As noted previously, the United States’ Fifth National Climate Assessment predicts that there will be nearly 3,000,000 new solar, wind, and transmission-related jobs by 2050 in a high electrification scenario and 6,000,000 new jobs in a 100% renewable scenario, with less than 1,000,000 fossil fuel-related jobs lost.³

Figure 1: Energy employment from 2020 to 2050 under various U.S. net-zero GHG emissions scenarios. Source: U.S. Global Change Research Program.

Most of the current domestic jobs are in manufacturing.⁴ Over 500 U.S. manufacturing facilities now specialize in producing components for wind power generation.⁵ For turbines installed in the United States, approximately 70% of tower manufacturing and 80% of nacelle assembly also occurs domestically.⁶ Furthermore, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics identified wind turbine service technicians as the fastest growing occupation between 2022 and 2023, growing roughly 45% in size during that time.⁷

[4] James Hamilton et al., Careers in Wind Energy, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (Sept. 2010)

[5] Wind Energy Technologies Office, Wind Manufacturing and Supply Chain, Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, U.S. Department of Energy (last visited March 25, 2024).

[6] The nacelle is the housing that holds the gearbox, generator, drivetrain, and brake assembly.

This rebuttal is based on the report "Rebutting 33 False Claims About Solar, Wind, and Electric Vehicles" written by Matthew Eisenson, Jacob Elkin, Andy Fitch, Matthew Ard, Kaya Sittinger & Samuel Lavine and published by the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia Law School in 2024. Skeptical Science sincerely appreciates Sabin Center's generosity in collaborating with us to make this information available as widely as possible.