BERLIN (Reuters) – The share of jobs in Germany related to the energy transition has more than doubled since 2019, but a shortage of skilled workers threatens a sector that has so far resisted the country’s recession, a study showed on Thursday.
Berlin’s push for solar and wind power expansion to meet its climate goals and compensate for a drop in Russian fossil fuel imports has boosted the sector.
The number of job offers related to the energy transition rose to 372,500 last year from around 173,000 in 2019, a study the German Economic Institute (IW) for the Bertelsmann Foundation found.
As Europe’s biggest economy enters its third year of recession, slashing jobs in the steel, automotive, chemicals and other sectors, the energy transition share in the job market grew to almost 4% in 2024 from 1.5% in 2019, the study found.
Advertisements for solar energy jobs rose to 102,000 in 2024 from 41,500 in 2019, while the number of wind energy jobs increased by 70% during that period to almost 53,000.
But the sector has struggled with a shortage of skilled workers, forcing employers to hire applicants without traditional education or experience as half of positions lacked enough applicants, the study found.
(Reporting by Riham Alkousaa; editing by Philippa Fletcher)
