U.S. Solar Jobs Grew by 22 Percent in 2014

In 2014, jobs in the U.S. economy grew by 1.3 percent over the previous year. This has been hailed as the strongest year for job growth since 2009. Interestingly, during the same period, jobs in the solar industry grew nearly 20 times that of the economy as a whole.

According to the new National Solar Jobs Census 2014, published recently by the Solar Foundation and George Washington University’s GW Solar Institute, last year the solar industry added 31,000 jobs, representing a growth rate of 21.8 percent over the previous year. One out of every 78 new jobs in the U.S. in 2014 was a solar job.

In comparison to the oil and gas pipeline construction and drilling industry, solar added almost 50 percent more jobs during 2014. Favorable policies and incentives at the federal, state, local and utility level that are aimed at promoting clean energy technologies have contributed significantly to this growth.

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Image Credit: Flickr via Wayne National Forest

Vikas is a staff writer for the Sustainable Development news and editorial section on Justmeans. He is an MBA with 20 years of managerial and entrepreneurial experience and global travel. He is the author of "The Power of Money" (Scholars, 2003), a book that presents a revolutionary monetary economic theory on poverty alleviation in the developing world. Vikas is also the official writer for an international social project for developing nations "Decisions for Life" run in collaboration between the ILO, the University of Amsterdam and the Indian Institute of Management.