Weekend Economists Trace the Long and Winding Road February 7-9, 2014

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20. need jobs? solar provides employment more than coal & oil combined

http://www.nationofchange.org/need-jobs-us-solar-industry-provides-employment-more-people-coal-and-oil-combined-1391783404

Welcome to the future, its already here. Solar employs and nuclear destroys; we have ample evidence of that now, and with the annual U.S. solar jobs census we now have proof that solar power isn’t just providing energy, without destroying our oceans and contaminating the earth and air with strontium, caesium and barium, among other chemicals, it is providing more than 143,000 Americans a paycheck.

Since 2012, that’s nearly a 20 percent increase, says The Solar Foundation, which conducts the census. An additional 23,682 jobs have been added—10 times the rate of employment growth as the national average of just 1.9 percent. In the past four years, 50,000 well paying jobs were added—many of them building and installing solar panels and this employment rate is expected to continue growing at a steady pace.

Solar installers also make an average of $20 to $23.60 an hour compared to the wages of a coal miner; that isn’t bad especially considering the payout to workers with black lung disease amount to billions and the detrimental affects to a worker’s health are almost irreversible.

Comparatively, during the last two years, fossil fuel jobs declined by 8.7 percent leaving 8,500 positions void, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. If you add up the figures, the solar industry now employs more folks than our coal and natural gas industries combined.