Wind officially employs more than coal industry

In some promising "green jobs" news, the wind industry in the U.S. has now officially surpassed the coal mining industry in the number of people it employs. Wind industry jobs increased to 85,000 in 2008 while the coal industry remained the same at about 81,000 jobs.

The country made huge gains in wind energy in the past couple of years and that increase obviously created huge gains in employment as well. Last year, there was a 50 percent increase in installed wind capacity and a 70 percent increase in wind industry jobs over the year before. Off those jobs, 13,000 were in regions of the country that had seen a loss of manufacturing jobs in recent years.

This is great news that shows that with the development of renewable energy industries in the country, there will be more jobs, but now we have to figure out a way to move some of these renewable energy projects into areas where people have long relied on coal mining jobs. In a recent post, we emphasized the need for green job training for those who may ultimately lose their coal mining or other industry jobs as renewable energy replaces other sources of energy. While it's very exciting that the wind industry is growing and creating jobs, we also need to start making sure that people are prepared to take advantage of them.

via Huffington Post