Download Analysis & Trends
The 2020 USEER is the fifth iteration of the annual energy and employment report. This section serves as a summary analysis of the past 5 years of U.S. energy and employment data.
5-Year Overview
In 2019, U.S. energy, energy efficiency, and motor vehicles firms employed more than 8.27 million Americans, comprising 5.4 percent of the U.S. workforce.
The traditional sectors— focused on the production of fuels and electricity and their transmission and distribution to end users—employ 3.3 million Americans. Meanwhile, the downstream sectors of energy efficiency and motor vehicles focused increasingly during the last five years on reducing consumption of the fuels and electricity produced upstream.
The decoupling of energy consumption from job growth is one of the important trends noted in the 2016-2020 USEERs. A second trend is the fact that the deployment of new technologies in all five sectors has driven net job growth.
These five sectors of the economy have grown 12.4 percent from 2015-2019, outpacing the general economy’s employment growth rate (6.0 percent). In total, these sectors added nearly 915,000 jobs to the US economy over the past 5 years, representing more than 10.7 percent of all new employment.
The role of energy efficiency, both in the built environment and in transportation, cannot be overstated as a contributor to job growth. While fuel efficiency jobs data in the motor vehicles sector was not collected in 2015, energy efficiency and fuel efficiency contributed to over 400,000 new jobs in the last five years.
6.8
Million Americans working in U.S. energy & energy efficiency jobs
2.55
Million Americans working in U.S. motor vehicles firms
12.4%
Employment in USEER sectors has grown 12% from 2015-2019
Growth Overview by Sector
The U.S. Energy & Employment Report (USEER) is an annual report, based on a survey administered to over 30,000 employers across 53 different energy technologies. Originally published by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) in 2016, the USEER was produced in 2018, 2019 and this year by the Energy Futures Initiative (EFI) and the National Association of State Energy Officials (NASEO) under the identical, federally-approved protocols as previous editions.
5 Years of Reports
To see previous versions of the full report, please click below to download. Each report was used to analyze the last five years.
2020 U.S. Energy and Employment Report | NASEO + EFI
2019 U.S. Energy and Employment Report | NASEO + EFI
2018 U.S. Energy and Employment Report | NASEO + EFI
2017 U.S. Energy and Employment Report | Department of Energy
2016 U.S. Energy and Employment Report | Department of Energy
Select a breakdown by sector
Fuels
Fuels employment encompasses all work related to fuel extraction and mining, including petroleum refineries and firms that support coal mining, oil, and gas field machinery manufacturing. Workers across both the forestry and agriculture industries that support fuel production with corn ethanol, biodiesels, and fuel wood are also included in the fuel employment data.
Electric Power Generation
Electric Power Generation (EPG) covers all utility and non-utility employment across electric generating technologies, including fossil fuels, nuclear, and renewable energy technologies. Also included in the employment totals are any firms engaged in facility construction, turbine and other generation equipment manufacturing, operations and maintenance, and wholesale parts distribution for all electric generation technologies.
Transmission, Distribution & Storage
Transmission, Distribution, and Storage (TDS) infrastructure for electric power and fuel links energy supplies to intermediate and end users.
Energy Efficiency
Energy Efficiency employment covers both the production and installation of energy-saving products and the provision of services that reduce end-use energy consumption. These jobs, as specified in the current survey, include the manufacture of ENERGY STAR®-labeled products, as well as building design and contracting services that provide insulation, improve natural lighting, and reduce overall energy consumption across homes and businesses.
Motor Vehicles
Though not considered a sector of the Traditional Energy industry, the Motor Vehicles and Component Parts sector, which includes cars, light-duty and heavy-duty trucks, trailers, and component parts of the foregoing, are included in this report, given both the high energy consumption of their manufacture and their contribution to end-use energy consumption.