The Bureau of Business Research (BBR), housed at the UNL College of Business Administration, recently completed a report looking at how green jobs can help grow the Nebraska economy in the coming years. Eric Thompson, UNL associate professor of economics and the BBR’s director is involved in the study that is being conducted alongside a six-state consortium of labor departments including the Nebraska Department of Labor.
“Our findings suggest that Nebraska workers are well equipped to take advantage of emerging opportunities within green economy industries,” said Thompson. “Nebraska already has many workers employed in green occupations and many additional workers in related occupations, who can readily switch into green occupations as employment opportunities grow.”
The report specifically looked at 16 “green” occupations that include a wide variety of worker skills. Overall, there is a lot of optimism that retooling of workers can readily happen, although some occupations were warned that staffing issues might occur because of high demand of highly trained professionals, particularly in engineering fields.
One of the primary purposes for the development of the report was because of the persistent decline in blue collar jobs across the country during the past several decades. The recent American Reinvestment and Recovery Act was cited in the report as an important piece that can be used to fund research into green jobs and that will help grow the new green industries.
The report also detailed how certain areas of Nebraska may have more advantages than others when looking at cultivating green jobs.
“For example,” the report relates, “regions of Nebraska with strong, sustained winds and good access to below-capacity transmission lines are the most appropriate location for wind power, and occupations required by wind power producers.”
Nevertheless, training remains a critical component of the development of green jobs. Thompson believes that over time, the work force will seek out the employment that is available and acquire the skills to thrive in those emerging industries.
The report identified that over 10% of Nebraska occupations have increased demand because of the green economy, over 9% of the occupations required enhanced green skills and over 3.5% were new and emerging occupations within the green economy.
Also working with Thompson on developing the report were BBR interns Lindsey Eastwood, Hanna Hartman and Jared McEntaffer.
Published: July 13, 2011