INSIDE THE NEW OCCUPATIONS IN ANALYST
Last week we introduced the 30 or so new occupations that the Bureau of Labor Statistics now tracks and EMSI provides data for in Analyst and our other tools. This post is part of a series digging into the new occupations — and our new numbers — more closely.
Four years after green jobs were the center of attention of American job-creation efforts, the U.S. has just 11,400 jobs in the two occupations that are now classified and counted by the government (solar photovoltaic installers and wind turbine service technicians). What’s striking, though, is most of these jobs are clustered in a handful of states.
More than a third of all solar installers and wind turbine techs are in California and Texas. And more than half (6,000 of the 11,400) can be found in those two states plus Colorado, New York, and Tennessee.
Note: As we’ve mentioned on the blog before, green work activity is spread across many different occupations. So the 11,400 jobs do not encompass the entire green sector; rather, these are the jobs that are fully green AND are classified by the BLS.
| State | 2010 Jobs | 2013 Jobs | Change | % Change | Median Hourly Earnings | 2013 Location Quotient |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Source: QCEW Employees, Non-QCEW Employees & Self-Employed - EMSI 2013.3 Class of Worker | ||||||
| California (CA) | 2,103 | 2,351 | 248 | 12% | $19.58 | 1.77 |
| Texas (TX) | 1,632 | 1,852 | 220 | 13% | $19.99 | 1.96 |
| Tennessee (TN) | 685 | 710 | 25 | 4% | $16.14 | 3.06 |
| Colorado (CO) | 472 | 496 | 24 | 5% | $20.73 | 2.46 |
| New York (NY) | 426 | 434 | 8 | 2% | $18.19 | 0.6 |
| Iowa (IA) | 307 | 338 | 31 | 10% | $20.20 | 2.64 |
| Florida (FL) | 317 | 324 | 7 | 2% | $16.30 | 0.51 |
| Pennsylvania (PA) | 322 | 310 | -12 | -4% | $17.24 | 0.66 |
| Minnesota (MN) | 298 | 308 | 10 | 3% | $18.53 | 1.35 |
| Illinois (IL) | 290 | 289 | -1 | 0% | $22.67 | 0.61 |
| Arizona (AZ) | 248 | 289 | 41 | 17% | $14.92 | 1.36 |
| Ohio (OH) | 234 | 239 | 5 | 2% | $20.20 | 0.57 |
| Oregon (OR) | 186 | 208 | 22 | 12% | $19.67 | 1.44 |
| North Carolina (NC) | 196 | 193 | -3 | -2% | $16.61 | 0.56 |
| Indiana (IN) | 175 | 187 | 12 | 7% | $18.34 | 0.78 |
| Virginia (VA) | 201 | 182 | -19 | -9% | $17.66 | 0.58 |
| Georgia (GA) | 183 | 181 | -2 | -1% | $17.44 | 0.54 |
| Michigan (MI) | 171 | 174 | 3 | 2% | $18.26 | 0.52 |
| Louisiana (LA) | 161 | 167 | 6 | 4% | $15.67 | 1.03 |
| Maryland (MD) | 145 | 153 | 8 | 6% | $17.74 | 0.7 |
| Washington (WA) | 150 | 147 | -3 | -2% | $20.03 | 0.58 |
| New Jersey (NJ) | 141 | 142 | 1 | 1% | $20.47 | 0.44 |
| Wisconsin (WI) | 134 | 133 | -1 | -1% | $17.56 | 0.59 |
| Massachusetts (MA) | 117 | 123 | 6 | 5% | $20.81 | 0.44 |
| South Carolina (SC) | 113 | 123 | 10 | 9% | $16.45 | 0.78 |
| Alabama (AL) | 127 | 120 | -7 | -6% | $16.76 | 0.76 |
| North Dakota (ND) | 86 | 109 | 23 | 27% | $24.77 | 2.91 |
| Missouri (MO) | 112 | 108 | -4 | -4% | $17.20 | 0.48 |
| Oklahoma (OK) | 99 | 98 | -1 | -1% | $17.74 | 0.72 |
| Kentucky (KY) | 98 | 89 | -9 | -9% | $21.98 | 0.58 |
| Arkansas (AR) | 81 | 69 | -12 | -15% | $13.57 | 0.7 |
| Mississippi (MS) | 73 | 66 | -7 | -10% | $26.06 | 0.69 |
| New Mexico (NM) | 62 | 66 | 4 | 6% | $15.18 | 0.95 |
| Kansas (KS) | 65 | 63 | -2 | -3% | $18.36 | 0.54 |
| Utah (UT) | 59 | 59 | 0 | 0% | $14.93 | 0.55 |
| Connecticut (CT) | 54 | 56 | 2 | 4% | $19.83 | 0.4 |
| Nebraska (NE) | 47 | 50 | 3 | 6% | $19.40 | 0.62 |
| West Virginia (WV) | 47 | 42 | -5 | -11% | $18.64 | 0.7 |
| Nevada (NV) | 45 | 41 | -4 | -9% | $16.77 | 0.43 |
| Montana (MT) | 35 | 39 | 4 | 11% | $16.17 | 0.99 |
| Maine (ME) | 39 | 37 | -2 | -5% | $18.71 | 0.73 |
| Idaho (ID) | 40 | 37 | -3 | -8% | $14.98 | 0.67 |
| New Hampshire (NH) | 30 | 31 | 1 | 3% | $20.82 | 0.58 |
| Wyoming (WY) | 29 | 30 | 1 | 3% | $16.37 | 1.24 |
| Delaware (DE) | 25 | 27 | 2 | 8% | $20.23 | 0.79 |
| Hawaii (HI) | 28 | 27 | -1 | -4% | $20.92 | 0.48 |
| South Dakota (SD) | 30 | 25 | -5 | -17% | $17.19 | 0.7 |
| Vermont (VT) | 24 | 23 | -1 | -4% | $18.21 | 0.87 |
| Alaska (AK) | 19 | 20 | 1 | 5% | $23.10 | 0.67 |
| Rhode Island (RI) | 18 | 16 | -2 | -11% | $19.59 | 0.41 |
| District of Columbia (DC) | <10 | <10 | -- | -- | -- | -- |
California has 21% of the national total of these classified green jobs, with 2,351 (up 12% since 2010). But Tennessee and North Dakota have the strongest concentration of these workers; both are roughly three times more concentrated than the national average. Iowa (2.64) and Colorado (2.46) each have more than twice the national share.
The above table also gives the median hourly earnings for solar installers and wind turbine techs. They both offer solid mid-skill wages (from an aggregate of $13.57 per hour in Arkansas at the low end to $26.06 in Mississippi, which is surprising given the generally lower wages there). But as you can see by the job totals, most states have very few of these workers. Even the states with the preponderance of green workers, the job totals are relatively small.
The following map shows the concentration of solar photovoltaic installers and wind turbine service technicians in the lower 48 states.
Users can access this new data by logging in to Analyst (you’ll automatically be updated to the 2013.3 dataset). For more information on Analyst or EMSI data, email Rob Sentz or visit our Analyst and Data pages.
