According to the Los Angeles Times, a study released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics yesterday showed that green jobs grew far faster than every other sector of employment in 2011, including healthcare.
The nation had about 3.4 million green energy jobs in 2011, the Bureau of Labor Statistics said Tuesday in its second annual and final look at this emerging category of employment. (More on why it’s the last report later.)
In all, so-called green jobs accounted for just 2.6% of all employment that year, but a comparison with 2010 data shows that these jobs grew at four times the rate of all the others combined. Green employment jumped 4.9% in 2011 from the prior year. That compares with a gain of 1.2% for all jobs and 2.7% for restaurants, 1.7% for manufacturing and 1.8% for healthcare, which is often seen as the fastest-growing sector.
But there’s an obvious caveat.
With the arrival of sequestration, the future of jobs in green energy is uncertain, and we’re quite literally at the mercy of private enterprise to make up for the difference. And even if it does, we may not know about it because the Bureau of Labor Statistics will no longer have the ability to study it.
Tuesday’s report was only the second one of its kind, but the BLS said earlier that it would be the last, a casualty of the federal budget cuts under the so-called sequestration that took effect March 1.
The importance of retaking the House of Representatives cannot be stressed enough.