Wired Magazine: Clean jobs may revive the middle class

13 Jun 2011 | Emma Brown

Despite recent criticisms that President Obama’s call for clean energy jobs may have been overblown, Wired Magazine’s Adam Davidson reports that, on the contrary, the broad emergence of clean energy jobs may be the key to reviving the middle-class and keeping the economy afloat.

Such clean jobs—also known as “smart jobs”—are a mix between white and blue-collar jobs. While they do require some training and continued human ingenuity, they rarely require extensive education and pay well.

The emergence of the smart jobs industry has outstripped job replacement and creation rates in almost every other industry by two-fold. When compared to traditional oil and energy jobs alone, clean energy jobs grew eight times faster between 2006 – 2010.

Additionally, these jobs, unlike other well-paying professions, are not limited to major cities, but rather are reviving the economies of the mid-west and South and becoming a major force in places like Dayton, Ohio; Calcasieu Parish, Louisiana; and Provo, Utah.

A quick comparison of the percentages of job growth happening in growing industries between 2006 - 2010 is below [click for a larger image]:

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