Tuesday, August 11, 2009

Green jobs floundering, will recovery help?

Speculation is that hiring in the alternative energy industry will increase in the next 12 months but probably won't become a bigger part of the US job market. This is according to Labor Secretary Hilda Solis in an Associated Press story from the second National Clean Energy Summit in Las Vegas.

What is lacking is investment, which supporters hope to see increase over the next year. This will only happen, however, if people get back to work and pique interest in expanding. Sound like a Catch-22? Solis hopes not.

"There'll be more, hopefully, credit available for this expansion because there will be more confidence because that's what we're lacking right now - that investment and confidence in the market."

That's a big "hopefully."

Former veep Al Gore put in his two cents (of course) by saying: "The economic crisis, the security crisis and the climate crisis are all intertwined, and the common thread running through them is our absurd and dangerous overdependence on carbon-based fuels."

I have no problem with, nay I very much enjoyed and agree with An Inconvenient Truth, but such rhetoric is doing more to alienate potential supporters than it is winning them over.

But despite the above statement, venture capitalists increased investments by 73 percent in the last three months over the previous three (see the KBR blog below) according to Ernst & Young. However, this is far below investments from just a year ago.

Before government initiatives were announced last year, investments were at a record high. That was well before the recession's full impact was felt.

The big downside has been the loss of jobs in wind, solar and other alternative energy companies. Projects were scuttled when credit markets froze and venture capital dried up.

Investments have been slow in coming as those with money conduct research to make the "wisest possible investments."

Union leaders are calling for large federal public works projects due to the fact that commercial and new housing projects are virtually non-existent.

Time will tell, but with the economy in dire need of stimulation and increasing proof of human involvement in global warming, such projects are beyond needed.

That said, give me a job!

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