Economy
Solar Jobs Are Outpacing the U.S. Economy By a Longshot
As the size of this workforce grows, so too will its political influence.
In his 2016 State of the Union address, President Barack Obama made the case that job growth is once more on the rise. Nowhere is that more true than in the domestic solar energy industry, which grew nearly 12 times faster than the overall economy in 2015.
The solar industry expanded 20 percent over the previous year to employ a total of 209,000 people, according to a detailed census of solar jobs released this week by The Solar Foundation, a nonprofit. Those new solar opportunities amounted to a whopping 1.2 percent of all new jobs added to the U.S. economy last year.