“I need a job.” These words are on a rampage, and they’re taking over the minds and tongues of college students, laid-off professionals, and generally dissatisfied workers everywhere. The Obama Administration knows the words well, and last week announced the allocation of $2.3 billion in tax credits to create “green jobs,” with about $90 million of it being allocated for Oregon. But the question is: Will the money be most appropriately spent increasing the effectiveness of job training programs in the state and creating strong ties between them and the industry, or will it be just another big-business handout?
Let’s just get this out of the way; it’s a handout.  Most of the money, to the tune of $82 million, will go to SolarWorld Industries America, a German solar goods manufacturer that plans to expand its plant in Hillsboro from its current 100 megawatt capacity to 500 megawatts. That is a big expansion, admittedly, and will undoubtedly create the demand for lots of new jobs, but whether or not Oregon laborers will be prepared to fill those positions is the real issue at hand.
A report put together by the Sustainable Oregon Workforce Initiative (SOW), sponsored by the Governor’s Strategic Training Fund, shows that Oregon is experiencing an acute shortage of skilled clean energy labor, specifically wind technicians, solar manufacturing workers and energy engineers.
“With the addition of SolarWorld and Solaicx, Oregon is now home to the largest solar manufacturing presence in the country,” it says. And there will supposedly be a demand for 600 wind technicians over the next four years.
These are solid, family-wage jobs we’re talking about, and being in the renewable energy sector, they’re important to any effort of becoming a non-fossil fuels based society. A solar installer with a basic license should start out at $20 per hour, for example, and professional energy analysts and engineers make from $60,000 to $80,000 per year. Wind energy technicians make anywhere from $20 to $24 an hour. So why the shortage of workers in a state struggling with unemployment and largely known for its commitment to environmental stewardship when green jobs seem an obvious help?
Unfortunately for would-be Oregon workers, the current educational opportunities available don’t have the capacity to meet the coming demand. Among the total 28 clean energy workforce-training programs in the state, consisting of academic institutions, non-profit organizations and apprenticeship programs, there is no coordinated effort to address the workforce needs of the clean tech sectors at this time.
Columbia Gorge Community College, for example, offers 1-year certificates and 2-year AAS degrees in Renewable Energy Technology, and is able to turn out 34 technicians per year at its current capacity. That is awesome, truly, but it’s not even close to 600. So, while the state is pouring money into the booming new sector, it isn’t proactively preparing Oregon workers to fill the job spaces it’s trying to create!
The SOW report says “communication gaps between key stakeholders are preventing training program development and utilization of workforce resources by clean energy companies” and proposes that in addressing this issue, both the industry and the educators will need to implement a number of systematic changes, primarily to increase coordination and collaboration amongst themselves.
The report suggests that perhaps the most effective remedy to the current communication gap will be establishing industry internship and mentoring systems within the programs that are already available and as a key element to any new training programs. It also said it would be important for retiring technicians to impart their experience on young workers just entering the field.
In truth, yes, the manufacturers are important and we need them. But we also need them to be a part of the community they’ve decided to settle their 500,000 square foot plants in. Only with stronger ties between training programs and the industry itself will we start to see the true benefits and improved quality of life for Oregon workers.
So SolarWorld, take note; if you could devote even a fraction of that $82 million handout you just got to educating your future employees through the schools that are struggling to get them trained for you, it seems like that would be mutually beneficial, and you would be doing a great service to the real, live community you chose for your
currently faceless, gazillion-dollar operation.
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