Idaho's green jobs pay $3 more an hour on average than other jobs in Idaho — but they require more training and education.
That's some of the results of a "Green Jobs" survey conducted by the Idaho Department of Labor funded with federal stimulus dollars. The statewide median wage for all green jobs reported in the survey was $17.30 per hour, compared to the $14.43 median wage for all jobs in Idaho.
"More than half of the 17,000 green jobs identified require a certification and over 70 percent require experience related to the positions prior to hiring. Still, the most common green job reported was construction laborer with a little more than 1,000 workers.
The 17,000 jobs represent about 3 percent of the state's 600,000 jobs covered by unemployment insurance. Employment overall is estimated at 850,000.
The Idaho economy has one of the highest concentrations in the nation of jobs with a distinct environmental focus and one of the highest potentials for growth in those jobs, the survey showed.
Only seven states - Alaska, Maine, Wyoming, Washington, New Mexico, Louisiana and Montana - had higher concentrations. Some of Idaho's green jobs are concentrated in industries facing limited or no growth in the coming years like sawmills and construction.
But Idaho has more room to grow - depending on business and consumer sentiment - in occupations where green jobs have developed than every state but Wyoming, Montana and North Dakota. One of every 10 Idaho employers had at least one worker involved in a green job, and those jobs were concentrated in 152 occupations, although half of all Idaho's green jobs were in the top 20 occupations on that list.
But while the potential for growth is significant, the financial setbacks imposed on Idaho by the recent recession have slowed the economic recovery across the state, and the slow economic recovery will hold green job growth over the next two years to just 2.2 percent, the Labor Department said.
Labor staff surveyed 5,000 businesses statewide during the summer of 2010 to identify occupations considered green under the department's definition and the number of people in those occupations whose work is environmentally focused.
Jobs were identified as green if the work contributed directly to renewable energy and alternative fuels; energy efficiency and conservation; sustainable agriculture and natural resource conservation; and pollution and waste control and remediation.
Thirty-two percent of the green jobs were in pollution and waste control and remediation, and another 31 percent were in sustainable agriculture and natural resource conservation. Renewable energy had the smallest green employment at 17 percent of all the green jobs.
Green jobs were found in every major industry sector except financial services, debunking the perception that green jobs were limited to a few specific sectors. Sixty percent of all green jobs in Idaho, however, were concentrated in three sectors - professional, scientific and technical services with nearly 25 percent, construction at 21 percent and government at 17 percent.
