U.S. Energy & Employment Report 2022

The U.S. Energy and Employment Report (USEER) is a comprehensive summary of national and state-level employment, workforce, industry, occupation, unionization, demographic, and hiring information by energy technology groups. The USEER began in 2016 at the recommendation of the first Department of Energy Quadrennial Energy Review to better track and understand employment within key energy sectors that have been difficult to impossible to follow using other publicly available data sources. The study combines surveys of businesses with public labor data to produce estimates of employment and workforce characteristics.

The 2022 USEER analysis shows that energy jobs have rebounded, after sharply declining in 2020 due the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent economic fallout. In 2021, energy jobs grew 4.0% from 2020, outpacing overall U.S. employment, which climbed 2.8% in the same time period. The energy sector added more than 300,000 jobs, increasing the total number of energy jobs from 7.5 million in 2020 to more than 7.8 million in 2021.

The USEER covers five major energy sectors: Electric Power Generation; Transmission; Distribution, and Storage; Fuels; Energy Efficiency; and Motor Vehicles. All sectors, except for fuels, experienced net positive growth in 2021. Jobs in clean energy industries drove increases, especially in solar, wind, and electric vehicles.