GREEN JOBS ACTUALLY ARE SPROUTING IN BAY AREA

Chalk this up as one business attraction policy the state got right.  According to a report released by the Brookings Institution, in partnership with the Bay Area Council Economic Institute, the San Jose-San Francisco-Oakland Bay Area now supports 70,679 clean tech jobs (51,811 in San Francisco and 18,686 in San Jose).  In San Jose, the largest segment is wind energy with 3,000 jobs, and the fastest growing segments were Fuel Cells, where employment grew 24.7 percent in the past seven years, and Wind Energy, where employment grew 17 percent.  In the San Francisco-Oakland area, the largest employment is Professional Energy Services with 7,532 jobs.

Likely due to the passage of the Global Warming Solutions Act, and various tax credits and incentives, the Bay Area now leads the nation in clean tech jobs, with eleven percent of all US clean tech jobs located in the region.  Between 2003 and 2010, clean tech jobs grew by an average annual rate of 5.4 percent in San Francisco and 12.6 percent in San Jose, far outpacing the 4.2% pace of job creation for jobs nationally.

These jobs help with a challenged part of our workforce.  More than two-thirds are middle wage “green collar” jobs that offer better pay for low and middle-skilled works than jobs in the economy as a whole. A high percentage – 26 percent – are in manufacturing, well above the 9% figure for all jobs nationally.

Our region now exports more than $1 billion in clean tech exports, including building control systems and electric vehicles.  Read the report here.