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Clean energy jobs grew more than three times faster than the rest of the U.S. economy in 2024, adding nearly 100,000 new positions and pushing the industry’s workforce to 3.56 million, according to the Clean Energy Jobs America 2025 report released Sept. 19 by the nonpartisan business group E2.
Despite the gains, however, E2 warns that federal policy changes could reverse years of progress and put hundreds of thousands of workers at risk.
“What these numbers show is that this was one of the hottest and most promising job sectors in the country at the end of 2024,” said Bob Keefe, E2’s executive director. “Now, clean energy job growth is at serious risk — and with it, our overall economy.”
The 10th annual Clean Jobs America report shows that while clean energy still outpaced the broader economy, the sector added about 50,000 fewer jobs than in 2023 — its slowest growth since the pandemic downturn in 2020.
Jobs in solar, wind, batteries, efficiency, and other subsectors accounted for more than 7 percent of all new jobs nationwide and 82 percent of all new energy jobs last year, the report says.
Clean energy jobs now account for 42 of all energy jobs in America and 2.3 percent of the overall national workforce, the report says, with more people now working in clean energy-related occupations than work as nurses, cashiers, waiters and waitresses, or preschool, elementary, and middle school teachers.
More than 520,000 jobs have now been added by the clean energy and clean vehicle sectors over the last five years, an increase of 17 percent — far exceeding employment gains in fossil fuels, gas and diesel motor vehicles, and the overall U.S. economy, says E2.
While the sector added the fewest jobs since the pandemic-fueled unemployment crisis, clean energy still grew more than three times faster than the rest of the U.S. workforce (2.8 percent vs. 0.8 percent) amid an economy-wide slowdown in hiring and rising policy uncertainty, and over the last five years, clean energy companies have added jobs 60 percent faster than the rest of the economy.
“Every year, clean energy jobs become more intertwined and critical to our overall economy,” said Michael Timberlake, director of research and publications for E2. “These jobs are now a vital anchor of America’s energy workforce. The strength of the U.S. job market and the future of our energy economy are now inseparable from the growth of clean energy.”
Energy efficiency remains the top sector for U.S. clean energy jobs, employing nearly 2.4 million workers nationwide after adding 91,000 jobs in 2024. That’s followed by renewable generation (569,000 overall, +9,000 in 2024) and clean vehicles (398,000 overall, -12,000 in 2024).
Despite an industry-wide decline across all motor vehicle sectors in 2024, clean vehicle jobs have grown 52 percent since 2020, adding 137,000 jobs.
Regionally, the South has emerged as the nation’s clean energy leader, home to more than one million workers. Texas to Virginia collectively added 41,000 jobs last year, while the West and Northeast added more than 20,000 each, says E2’s report.
Though not reflected in the 2024 data, E2 said that recent policy actions by Congress and the Trump administration have already resulted in major job losses in the industry, with more expected to come.
According to separate E2 research, since January 2025 companies canceled more than $22 billion planned clean energy related factories and other projects that were expected to create 16,500 new jobs.
Analysis by other organizations estimate more than 830,000 jobs could be lost just because of the energy policy rollbacks in Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act, signed into law on July 4.
