The number of green jobs in Arizona is expected to grow eight times more than other jobs this year.
But is that enough to pull the local economy out of its current malaise? Probably not, experts say.
While much has been made on the national and local fronts about green jobs being a savior for the flagging economy, Steve Zylstra said that may be overstating the situation a bit.
“I would say ‘savior’ is a pretty big word,” said Zylstra, president and CEO of the Arizona Technology Council. “The green economy has not generated a huge amount of jobs locally. It’s still a nascent industry. But, green jobs can likely have a very big impact in the next five to 10 years.”
Evidence of the green job market’s current role — minor, but with great growth potential — in relation to the state’s overall economy lies in two reports prepared for Arizona by the Arlington, Va.-based Council for Community and Economic Research.
In its Arizona Green Jobs Vacancy Report released in May, C2ER analyzed 402,119 online job listings Arizona employers posted between March 2010 and March 2011. Only 1.8 percent of those positions fell into the green jobs category.
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics defines green jobs as those that produce goods or provide services that benefit the environment or conserve natural resources. A green job also can be a position that makes its establishment’s production processes more environmentally friendly or use fewer natural resources.
Two months prior to releasing that report, C2ER announced that Arizona-based businesses expected to see 8.6 percent growth in green jobs by year-end, far outpacing the projected statewide growth rate of 0.7 percent for jobs overall.
“Anticipated green-job growth rates are quite impressive and represent a likely fast-growing sector in Arizona during the coming year and beyond,” the report states.
Those keeping a close watch on the green-collar workforce, including Zylstra, say it’s not uncommon for emerging economic drivers to develop in fits and starts, or for differences of opinion about a sector’s success to coexist. Lawmakers on the national front have been debating the issue for years.
In September, Democrats and Republicans on the U.S. House Oversight Committee produced separate reports evaluating the Barack Obama administration’s productivity on the green jobs front. Republicans called the agenda a failure, while Democrats argued the green technology sector is booming.
Supporting the Democrats’ opinion is information from the Congressional Budget Office indicating green jobs nationwide increased by 1.9 million, to 2.9 million, under the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act of 2009, which sought to boost the number of U.S. green jobs and green technologies through government-backed loans.
The loan-guarantee program has come under fire recently with the high-profile closure of Fremont, Calif.-based solar manufacturer Solyndra LLC, which had received a $535 million federal loan guarantee from the U.S. Department of Energy.
Zylstra said the closure was not un-expected.
“The unique technology of Solyndra became noncompetitive compared to the cost of producing solar technology, which is why it met its demise,” he said. “Subsidies are another fact that make the solar industry volatile, but that doesn’t mean solar is not worth the potential opportunities it will create.”
In Arizona, the solar industry has been one of the leading drivers of green jobs; but even here, that industry is not without its struggles and critics.
On one hand, the Washington-based Solar Foundation recently gave Arizona high marks for its estimated solar workforce of 4,800, ranking the state third in the nation, behind California and Colorado — Nos. 1 and 2, respectively.
Arizona has made a concerted effort in recent years to attract solar manufacturers through aggressive tax incentives. Also driving the industry is the Arizona Corporation Commission’s requirement that regulated utilities produce 15 percent of their electricity from renewable sources by 2025.
But companies that operate in the solar energy supply chain complain that unstable residential and commercial incentive programs devised by the utility companies are holding the industry back by creating an atmosphere of vulnerability and uncertainty.
“As a state, I think we’re doing a reasonably good job producing green jobs,” said Rob Dallal, director of Natural Power & Energy, a solar integration and consulting company based in Scottsdale. “It’s night and day versus two years ago, but ... we could have done better increasing our workforce if we felt certainty regarding the incentive structure.”
“The biggest current obstacle to growth is the short-term policymaking at the local level,” he said.
Dallal said his company, which employs four people, is typical of the small businesses that make up Arizona’s solar installation and service industry. Though he said he plans to nearly double his workforce in the next year, he sides with colleagues who maintain it’s tough to do business amid changing incentive amounts, application approval delays and payout lag times, which can take months.
George Basile, a professor at Arizona State University’s School of Sustainability, said though the green-collar workforce covers positions ranging from bike messengers to solar plant engineers, energy will play an increasingly large role in the creation of future jobs.
“Energy is a fundamental metabolite of society,” he said. “What food is to us, energy is to our society.”
ASU’s School of Sustainability is preparing the green-collar workforce of the future by teaching students to think broadly across various previously segmented fields of study, including political science, energy and engineering.
“We’re thinking about the big-picture questions and how we address them,” he said. “We’re trying to figure out how to train people for the new reality. It’s a pioneering space. Could we do more? You bet — but it’s a bumpy road.”
By Linda Obele, Contributing Writer, Phoenix Business Journal
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