Who’s fit for the low-carbon transition? Emerging skills and wage gaps in job and data

Aurélien Saussay, Misato Sato, Francesco Vona and O’Kane, Layla

No 329079, FEEM Working Papers from Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei (FEEM)

Abstract: As governments worldwide increase their commitments to tackling climate change, the number of low-carbon jobs are expected to grow rapidly. Here we provide evidence on the characteristics of low-carbon jobs in the US using comprehensive online job postings data between 2010-2019. By accurately identifying low-carbon jobs and comparing them to similar jobs in the same occupational group, we show that low-carbon jobs differ from high-carbon or generic jobs in a number of important ways. Low-carbon jobs have higher skill requirements across a broad range of skills, especially technical ones. However, the wage premium for low-carbon jobs has declined over time and the geographic overlap between low- and high-carbon jobs is limited. Overall, our findings suggest the low-carbon transition entails potentially high labour reallocation costs associated with re-skilling and earning losses, indicating public investments in skills is needed to deliver a smooth and rapid transition.

Keywords: Labor and Human Capital; Research and Development/Tech Change/Emerging Technologies (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 66
Date: 2022-10-27
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-env
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/329079/files/NDL2022-031.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: Who’s fit for the low-carbon transition? Emerging skills and wage gaps in job ad data (2022)
Working Paper: Who’s fit for the low-carbon transition? Emerging skills and wage gaps in job ad data (2022)
Working Paper: Who’s fit for the low-carbon transition? Emerging skills and wage gaps in job and data (2022)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ags:feemwp:329079

DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.329079

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