The jury is still out on whether or not going green and enforcing environmental regulations truly creates or hurts jobs. Many argue that the extreme regulations put large strains on businesses and forces them to spend more money on getting up to speed environmentally and less money on business and job creation. Furthermore, a lot of the environmental regulations on businesses come at a large cost to the company with little or no benefits to their overall profits in the end.
On the other hand, many believe that going green can create thousands of new jobs for Americans that need them. Solar and wind energy projects alone have added thousands of jobs all over the country and neglecting to refund the projects will leave many Americans without a job, again. However, according to the following infographic, going green will greatly benefit not only the environment, but the unemployed. The statistics in the graph show that from 1998-2007 the job growth in the “green community” was triple that of all other U.S. jobs during that time. The traditional job growth was at 3.7 percent while the green community’s was noted at 9.1 percent.
It’s important to note that this infographic is created and backed by 1 Block Off The Grid, a company that finds the best solar installers for people who want to switch to solar energy. A green company publishing a graphic in support of going green should be looked at with skeptical eyes. Even so, numbers don’t lie. The numbers specifically show that jobs in hydropower make up the most of the green community with 40 percent. Behind that is wind energy at 18 percent. Furthermore, the median wage of a green worker is $44,000 annually while an average U.S. worker’s is $38,616. Take a look at the graphic and decide how you feel on going green and the job advantages it may or may not yield.
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