Could Green Jobs and Job Opportunities Create More Employment Problems Than They Fix?

The call for the creation of green jobs has become the battle cry of environmentalists and environmentally conscious politicians, but are there sufficient green job opportunities for the average employable worker on a job search? Employment studies show mixed results.

Green Jobs are supposed to Jumpstart the Economy. Really?

Europe has been ahead of the pack when it comes to the creation of environmental jobs and green job opportunities. In the United States such green jobs are now believed to be the panacea to what ails the floundering economy.

Yet Fox News reports on an employment study out of Spain which suggests that more than two regular job opportunities are lost for every one of the green jobs that government funding makes possible. Official American reaction to this study of green job opportunities was hasty and generally dismissive.

Flipside of the Quest for Green Jobs and Employment Opportunities

While Spain mulls over the cost of green jobs and is unsure if the expenditures are really worth it, the UK warns that failure to act swiftly may cost Britain a large number of green job opportunities. The Guardian reports that the UK's need for governmental investment in green jobs is placed against the backdrop of a worsening recession that has the administration hold on to any infrastructure investment funds with tight fists. Here the call is for increased investment in environmental jobs.

Green Jobs Hailed a Solution in the Los Angeles State of the City Address

Yesterday Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa delivered the Los Angeles state of the city speech and in a moment of rare political candor admitted that during his tenure the number of workers on the job search in L.A. has reached 12%. The L.A. Times reports that the City of Angels has a deficit of $530 million - and this is just this year!

Not surprisingly, the Los Angeles mayor is looking to environmental jobs and declares that workers need to be trained for the jobs of tomorrow. This is followed by the declaration that the city has begun - and will continue - to invest heavily in summer job programs for young people. The mayor's goal is to train young people, ostensibly community college students, to undertake the new trade of solar panel installation.

This then begs the question: are green jobs truly the universal remedy for the lack of job opportunities, or are hopeful politicians blindly jumping on the bandwagon of environmentally conscious speechifying against the backdrop of the inconvenient truth reported by some who have already gone down that road?

Sources
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/first100days/2009/04/14/spanish-study-sparks-skepticism-green-jobs/; http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/apr/14/green-jobs-wind; http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2009/04/full-text-of-villaraigosas-state-of-the-city-speech.html