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The Green Industry And The Numbers

Last week ichamba's blog post discussed companies that are embracing environmentally safe practices, and we found out how and why ichamba is one of those companies. So in light of that newly adopted green effort, today's blog post is about green jobs in Oregon.

According to an article in the Portland Tribune, as well as a new state report, Oregon had more than 50,000 “green” jobs in 2008, and employers across the state expect to add many more in the next few years.

Oregon Employment Department’s “Greening of Oregon’s Work force: Jobs, Wages and Training,” reported that the state had 51,402 jobs in energy efficiency or renewable projects and a handful of other environmentally related fields. That accounted for about 3 percent of the state’s total employment.

By 2010, employers say they’ll add about 14 percent more green jobs, according to the state report.

Oregon’s Employment Department released information about the report Monday morning, June 29. The report was based on a survey of employers and found that "green jobs" consisted of 226 different occupations.

A green job is one that "provides a service or a product by increasing energy efficiency; producing renewable energy; preventing, reducing or mitigating environmental degradation; cleaning up and restoring the natural environment; and, providing education, consulting, policy promotion, accreditation, trading and offsets or similar services for related environmental projects."

Construction, wholesale, retail trade, administrative and waste services were the leading industries for most green jobs, about 47 percent of the total, according to the report.

The five occupations with the most green jobs were carpenters, farm workers, truck drivers, hazardous materials removal workers and landscaping and groundskeepers.

The average wage for green jobs in 2008 was $22.61 an hour.

According to the report, nearly a third of green jobs required a special license or certificate. The most common requirements were specific to occupations, such as an electrician’s license. Other common requirements were environmental cleanup or abatement certifications, equipment operator licenses and commercial driver’s licenses and prior on-the-job experience.

The report was funded, in part, with Employer Workforce Training Funds administered by the Oregon Department of Community Colleges and Workforce Development.

By: Lea Wolf

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