Do renewable energy investments create local jobs? | Analyzing data from over 3900 Spanish municipalities (2017–2021), we find that new jobs frequently do not remain in the host communities
Do renewable energy investments create local jobs? | Analyzing data from over 3900 Spanish municipalities (2017–2021), we find that new jobs frequently do not remain in the host communities
This means that it's not going to be possible to simply assume that jobs produced from renewables are going to able to drive public support for an energy transition; we're going to need to attach decarbonization policy to a broader guarantee of employment, wages, and working conditions.
One of the good things about renewable energy projects is that largely they don't require a ton of labor to maintain, but they do need a fair bit of spin up to get planned and permitted and installed. Wind tends to require more specialized installation, so you may have a traveling install crew there, but solar often relies on local labor pools. So there are a few years of community jobs generated but it's very small for the life of the project.
Some project developers (the good ones at least) are working to invest in local communities like other member businesses- sponsoring little league teams, creating community gardens, funding science education, etc. Is that enough? Hard to say, but I think the idea that projects can bring value to communities should be decoupled from the amount of local jobs they bring at least. Ideally that's through some means of UBI, but more likely some form of tax on profits going to community reinvestment (that's broad enough to cover Walmarts and more too).