In the wake of the pandemic, the U.S. energy sector from 2021 to 2022 added nearly 300,000 jobs, outpacing overall domestic employment growth, the Department of Energy (DOE) reported.
DOE’s annual U.S. Energy and Employment Report (USEER) said energy employment rose 3.8% over the period, recouping 71% of the jobs lost in 2020 during the Covid-19 pandemic. Overall U.S. jobs growth over the period rose by 3.1%.
The petroleum and natural gas fuels sector saw the largest percent increase from 2021 to 2022, “with the fastest growth seen in onshore natural gas,” researchers said. Petroleum fuels jobs rose 12.5%, a gain of 58,100. Jobs within the natural gas fuels sector jumped 24%, up by 51,200.
“The second largest percent increase was in electric power generation jobs,” the researchers said. Natural gas electric power generation jobs increased by 6.6% from 2021 to 2022, with employment rising by 7,311. Oil electric power jobs grew by 2.4%, while coal electric power generation jobs declined by nearly 10%.
Meanwhile, jobs classified as “clean energy” climbed by 3.9% from 2021 to 2022, spurred in part by the enactment in 2021 of the Biden administration’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. Adding to the jobs gains was the passage in 2022 of the Inflation Reduction Act.
“Prior to the Covid-19 pandemic, the energy sector was one of the nation’s fastest growing job markets,” the report noted. “From 2015 to 2019, the annual growth rate for energy employment in the U.S. was 3.0% – double the 1.5% job growth in the U.S. economy as a whole.”
The pandemic and economic fallout that resulted “deeply impacted energy employment, with the sector losing jobs at a higher rate than the economy as a whole. As of 2022, the energy sector has recovered 71% of the jobs lost in 2020.
“The energy sector has added back 596,000 of the 840,000 jobs lost during the first year of the pandemic, but the distribution of these jobs has shifted across technologies.”
Since the pandemic, the U.S. energy system has rapidly transformed, according to the USEER.
Many “traditional” energy sector segments, including utility-scale power generation, fossil fuel extraction, and electric and gas transmission and distribution, “are inarguably part of the energy sector.”
Other energy sector-related activities have since grown in status, including storage technologies and energy efficiency products and services. It has made tracking job gains and losses more difficult, researchers said.
Employment data collected by the Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) “provide information on many, but not all, energy-related job categories,” the researchers noted. “Most notably, BLS does not collect data on employment levels by energy technology across business segments.”
For example, petroleum engineering firms are included in engineering services, with civil, mechanical and other engineers, but electric vehicle manufacturers are combined with gasoline and diesel-fueled vehicle manufacturing.
“Natural gas business activities, for instance, differ from business activities relating to advanced building materials and solar photovoltaic materials,” the researchers said.
Among the states,Texas added the most energy jobs (50,197) from 2021 to 2022, followed by California (21,198), and Pennsylvania (15,162).
Over the period reviewed, the energy workforce was 73% dominated by men, versus 53% of the U.S. workforce average.
“Women remained underrepresented in the energy workforce (26% compared to 47% in overall workforce), but their participation in the workforce has grown. The number of women in energy increased by 151,000 (7.8%), meaning that over half of the jobs added in 2022 were held by women.”
In related news, the Texas Oil & Gas Association (TXOGA) said U.S. Census Bureau and Texas Workforce Commission data for the first quarter found that direct employment and wages saw continued growth.
According to TXOGA’s latest chartbook by chief economist Dean Foreman, employment between January and March rose to nearly 495,600 jobs, up 2.1% year/year. Industry wages in the first three months topped $20.8 billion, a 6.5% gain from 1Q2023.
