Jobs are disappearing in coal, oil and gas. It’s not just because we have many more efficient, cost-effective and less polluting ways to power our societies — although that’s a big part of it. Automation, artificial intelligence and industry consolidation are already reducing the fossil fuel workforce, and the trend is accelerating.
In Canada, despite a 35 per cent increase in oil production and 24 per cent in “natural” gas over the past five years, employment in the fossil fuel industry dropped by 38,000 jobs, down to less than one per cent of the workforce, the Centre for Future Work reports.
The industry and its political and media supporters care little about jobs or working people, as much as they might claim otherwise. Machines and computers don’t require training, demand fair wages and benefits, take sick days or get injured on the job.
For evidence of how little regard many fossil fuel supporters, especially in politics, have for working people, one has only to look at their attempts to stall the necessary transition to renewable energy — which is already generating far more employment.
The Trump administration in the United States is an obvious example, but we’ve also seen it with Alberta and Saskatchewan’s governments, various Canadian provincial and federal political parties and politicians in the United Kingdom and elsewhere. Barriers thrown in the way of renewable energy development while fossil fuels continue to receive support and subsidies don’t just represent an attack on safer, less-polluting energy sources; they’re also an attack on working people.
According to the Pembina Institute, the Alberta government’s 2023 pause on renewable energy projects affected 118 projects worth at least $33 billion of investment, which would have created enough jobs to keep 24,000 people working for a year. More recently, 79-year-old Calgary-based ATCO Ltd. has blamed Alberta government policies for a $408 million devaluation of its wind and solar projects in the province.
Overseas, as Guardian writer George Monbiot explains, the conservative Confederation of British Industry found that “the net zero economy now directly employs more than 300,000 full-time workers, while supporting the jobs of 1.1 million” and that the sector is worth £100 billion to the UK, growing steadily. “The rest of the green economy directly employs a further 600,000.”
He adds, “In October, the government announced plans to create another 400,000 jobs through its green energy plan, particularly for people leaving the fossil fuel industry, school leavers, ex-offenders, veterans and the unemployed.” In 2023, the country’s oil and gas industry provided just 27,500 jobs and supported 205,000.
It’s the same everywhere, especially as countries ramp up renewable energy development in attempts to extricate themselves from increasingly volatile fossil fuel markets, choked by conflicts in the Middle East and Russia-Ukraine and subject to shortages and monopoly control.
In the U.S., regardless of its president’s attempts to shore up what he ludicrously calls “clean, beautiful coal,” solar generated more power in May than coal for the first time — supplying 12.8 per cent compared to 12.2 per cent for coal.
Despite a recent drop in renewable energy investment in the U.S. because of the administration’s policy reversals and support for fossil fuels, the sector is growing faster than any part of the economy. The World Resources Institute reports that “clean energy jobs grew by nearly 12%, going from 3.2 million workers in 2021 to 3.6 million by the end of 2024. Across the country, 22 out of every 1,000 workers were employed in clean energy-related positions in 2024. During the same period, the broader U.S. job market only grew by only 8%.”
It’s clear that those advocating for the necessary “just transition” from fossil fuels to renewable energy care more about workers than fossil fuel supporters, who prioritize profits and political funding.
Along with a shift to better jobs in renewable energy, we also need to shift our thinking about employment. For starters, we must realize that the five-day, 40-hour workweek is as outdated as the energy sources that have fuelled it.
We must also ensure that those employed in the fossil fuel industry, along with many others, can be guaranteed adequate training, good wages and benefits and varied opportunities to be part of cleaner, healthier, more prosperous future.
David Suzuki is a scientist, broadcaster, author and co-founder of the David Suzuki Foundation. Written with David Suzuki Foundation Senior Writer and Editor Ian Hanington.
