Green Efforts to Create More Than 100,000 Florida Jobs

Green efforts should soon create thousands of new Florida jobs.

A new report states that investing in clean energy could create 123,756 jobs in Florida. The report was conducted by the Political Economy Research Institute at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and the Center for American Progress.

“This new report shows that investing in clean energy is a win-win solution," St. Petersburg Councilman Karl Nurse said in an article by the St. Petersburg Times. "Shifting to clean energy will put more people to work and revitalize our economy at a time when many Americans are hurting."

The report included jobs that could be created by making houses and buildings more energy efficient; expanding mass transit and rail; constructing smart grids and investing in biofuels and solar and wind power.

Some positions these industries would need include machinists, truck drivers, sheet metal workers, electricians, roofers and builders. These are many of the same workers that are currently having trouble finding employment because of the failing housing industry.

As of July 2008, Florida's construction industry, which has been most affected by the housing crisis, employed 515,900 workers, a decrease of 12.9 percent from last year. The construction industry as a whole is expected to increase to 647,385 jobs by 2015, according to the State of Florida Agency for Workforce Innovation. This is an increase of .87 percent from the 605,470 jobs the industry had in 2007.

The state's total non-farm employment in July 2008 was at 7,924,000 workers, a decrease of 1.2 percent from last year, according to the United States Department of Labor Bureau of Labor Statistics.