New research from Transition Economics and Platform finds significant potential for regional job creation in clean sectors such as housing retrofits, offshore wind and hydrogen electrolyzer manufacturing.
Published Monday, October 31, 2022, the report focuses on the potential for clean job creation in regions with significant employment opportunities in the oil and gas industry and its supply chain.
The study found that up to 42,600 new cleaning jobs could be created in Tyneside; 33,800 new cleaning jobs could be created in Aberdeen and Aberdeenshire 28,300 new cleaning jobs could be created in Teeside, and An additional 34,200 new cleaning jobs could be created in Fife and Tayside over the next ten years.
Renewable Energy
RMT union organizer and former oil rig worker Jake Molloy said: “This study shows that it is possible to phase out oil and gas in a way that doesn’t put entire communities at risk, and now we need politicians to keep working.
“Any discussion of a just transition is meaningless without support for offshore oil and gas workers to switch to renewables. As we phase out North Sea oil and gas, we need to see protections for workers – job security, skills transfer and greatly improved conditions.
“As it stands, workers are finding it difficult to get jobs in the offshore wind sector due to barriers to training standards bodies, while pay, safety and job security conditions in offshore oil and gas are rapidly deteriorating.”
Platform’s Just Transition Advocate Rosemary Harris said: “At a time of political turmoil in the government, we need to seek out MPs in regions currently reliant on the offshore oil and gas industry to be bold and have a voice for appropriate public investment in renewables. For the UK Workers provide a fair and just transition.
“Continued extraction of oil and gas is bad for workers and bad for the climate. We urgently need to scale up alternatives to enable workers in high-carbon industries to transition to renewable energy.
skill improvement
“Just sticking to the fossil fuels of the past is not enough and will only hurt workers who may end up trapped in these industries as they are phased out.”
Current UK government and industry policies have failed to make up for jobs lost to the oil and gas slump. The total number of jobs related to offshore oil and gas fell sharply, from 326,000 in 2016 to 178,500 in 2020.
However, by 2032, the number of new jobs created by moving away from fossil fuels could be at least three times the number of oil and gas jobs affected.
Creating jobs of this scale requires local-based policies and public investment in areas that have the greatest potential to reduce emissions and create high-quality jobs – with secure contracts, fair pay, opportunities for upskilling, and good health and safety practices .
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Brendan Montague is the editor ecologist. This article is based on Platform’s press release.
