Green Jobs in Minnesota

by Alessia Leibert and Nick Dobbins
June 2010

In December 2009 the U. S. Department of Labor awarded the Labor Market Information (LMI) Office of the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development (DEED) a $1.15 million grant to collect, analyze, and disseminate labor market information on green jobs in the state. The first period of data collection for this study concluded in March, and the information gathered is presented here. The 18-month grant ends in May 2011. Final results will be available shortly thereafter.

Data Sources and Research Process

Minnesota’s green jobs project uses the existing statewide Job Vacancy Survey (JVS) along with a follow-up telephone survey, and secondary research to study green jobs in Minnesota. Unlike many green jobs studies conducted in other states, the goal is to measure the current market for green jobs rather than the overall size of green employment within the state.

The JVS is a semiannual survey of employers. The survey results produce estimates of hiring demand and job vacancy characteristics by industry and occupation in Minnesota. Surveys are mailed to a sample of more than 12,000 employers who may return them by mail or fax or allow DEED to study job postings on company websites. Starting with the fourth quarter 2009 survey round, industries that were pre-identified as potentially green were over-sampled. The response rate for this JVS period was just over 71 percent.

To identify relevant green positions, JVS respondents were asked if each of their vacancies were “green.” Green jobs were defined as those providing “opportunities to engage in energy or natural resource conservation, renewable energy development, pollution cleanup, [or] pollution reduction.” Each position that was identified as green was included in the study. If a respondent did not answer the “green” question but was in a previously identified green industry, those vacancies were also selected for further study.

Follow-up telephone interviews were conducted with employers to confirm the environmental activities of each position and to gather qualitative information on skill and knowledge requirements, job duties and hiring difficulties.

Identifying Green Jobs

Since a standard definition for a green job does not yet exist, a number of situations require analyst judgment to determine if a position is green. For instance, drivers who operate more efficient, biodiesel-fueled trucks but have no additional duties, were not categorized as green, because it is not the work performed by drivers that produces the environmental benefit. Roofers, on the other hand, are considered green, because even if they do not have job requirements beyond what has traditionally been done in the occupation, energy conservation is a direct result of their work activity.

Degrees of separation from the environmental impact are also considered. A college professor who lectures on environmental issues would not be considered green for our purposes, because there is no immediate green output. However, a researcher in the same academic department who is working on improving solar cell technology may be green, as the work performed would be directly contributing to a green product. If the performance of a job directly results in an environmental benefit, that position will be included as green.

Initial JVS returns demonstrated that relying on firms to self-identify green jobs can yield inconsistent results, often from confusion surrounding the meaning of green. In some cases firms with environmentally friendly policies included all of their vacancies as being green, regardless of job duties. In others cases respondents simply misunderstood what we mean by environmental benefits. A large number of vacancies in retail stores, for example, were identified by respondents as green. If the JVS results had been accepted based purely on self-reporting, cashier would have been among the top green job titles in Minnesota. Follow-up phone calls, however, revealed that many of the positions in question did little or no environmentally beneficial work and were not green by our definition.

In order to minimize situations like this, the word green has been entirely removed from the survey. Respondents are now asked whether each job falls within specific categories (see Table 1). This refined definition identifies green on the basis of objectively measurable activities that are essential to job performance.

The Greening of Minnesota’s Economy

At the time of the survey, there were an estimated 488 green job openings in Minnesota, which represented 1.8 percent of all vacancies in the state. Although this study is not attempting to estimate the overall size of the green workforce, the percentage of green vacancies to total vacancies (1.8 percent) is within the same order of magnitude as other research findings in Michigan, California, and Washington state even though results are not directly comparable because of considerable differences in methodological approaches among these studies.

More than one-third of all green vacancies in Minnesota were principally engaged in the Environmental Cleanup/Pollution Reduction and Prevention sector (see Table 1). The majority of those vacancies are involved in recycling, either through collection of recyclables or through manufacturing using recycled or repurposed materials.

Minnesota’s Green Occupations

An estimated 26 percent of green vacancies in Minnesota were in designated Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) occupations. For comparison, only 12 percent of all vacancies in the state were in STEM occupations.

The occupations in Table 2 are listed in ranked order of estimated vacancies, and they represent some of the most prevalent green occupations found in the state.

New Green Careers

The Occupational Information Network (O*NET) has identified a number of green new and emerging occupations where “the impact of green economy activities and technologies is sufficient to create the need for unique work and worker requirements, which results in the generation of a new occupation relative to the O*NET taxonomy.” [1]

The following new and emerging job titles have been reported in our survey sample:

• Energy Engineer
• Weatherization/Retrofit Installer and Technician
• Wastewater Engineer
• Water Resource Engineer
• Remediation Project Manager
• Sustainability Coordinator
• Building Systems Technician

Green Jobs by Industry

Table 3 lists nine industries with multiple green job vacancies in ranked order according to preliminary research findings. It also provides an example of what makes occupations within the industry green.

The highest concentration of green jobs occurred in Administration of Conservation Programs with Engineering Services and Plumbing/HVAC Contractors appearing frequently as well.  Beyond the listed industries, vacancies have also consistently been reported in industries associated with ethanol and wind power.

Construction industries, including Architectural Services, which are expected to make up a large portion of green vacancies, were not well-represented in the data collected so far. This is likely caused by a combination of the winter off-season for construction and the effects of the recession.

Regional and Educational Characteristics of Green Vacancies

Initial findings on the location of green vacancies provided some unexpected results. While only 42 percent of all job vacancies in the period were located outside the seven-county metro area, the same area accounted for 64 percent of green vacancies. If these findings are confirmed in future study periods, they will suggest that green vacancies are more likely to be found in Greater Minnesota, while the overall majority of all vacancies are still located in the metro area.

Findings on education requirements revealed that nearly 70 percent of all green vacancies need some level of school or training beyond a high school diploma. This is in stark contrast with economy-wide findings in which only 44 percent of all vacancies required a comparable level of education or training (see Table 4). This suggests that green vacancies require a higher education level than their non-green counterparts which is consistent with findings that 88 percent of all green vacancies require prior work experience and that 12 percent are managerial positions.

Bachelor’s degrees in engineering, business, natural resources such as ecology or hydrology, and other life sciences such as geochemistry were among the most frequently cited education preferences by respondents.

Knowledge of policies and standards of compliance with environmental regulations were in high demand in green vacancies. State commercial driver’s licenses and professional engineer’s licenses were among the most cited necessary certifications, and working knowledge of GIS or GPS was often needed for green jobs.

One unexpected finding was the frequently required combination of familiarity with both engineering and marketing or business. In those instances an engineering background was often needed to understand a product or assist in development or design, and the marketing/business background was required to sell the product and assure strong relationships with customers.

Further information on skills, knowledge, education, and certification requirements will become available as more data are gathered and the results are more conclusive.

Additional Information from the Survey

In addition to the presented data, the survey is designed to gather information on specific traits of the vacancies and trends in the labor market for these vacancies. While early results on some areas of interest are too limited or too volatile to publish in their entirety with confidence at this point in the research process, some further information is worth noting.

In response to one question in the telephone survey regarding whether a given vacancy was for a new or existing position, the largest number of respondents stated that it was a new position. This may suggest job growth associated with the greening of Minnesota’s economy and bears watching in the future.

The findings from the answers to a series of questions designed to measure hiring difficulties and gaps in applicants’ qualifications for green jobs were hampered by an insufficient number of applicable responses. This is likely attributable to the large pool of Minnesotans currently looking for work. When asked to describe any difficulties in hiring for their positions, most respondents advised that there were none. It was common for respondents to cite difficulties stemming from having too many qualified applicants to consider. The most often-cited shortcoming of the applicant pool was a lack of sufficient skills or knowledge for a given position.

Additional updates on the study’s progress will be published in Minnesota Employment Review as they become available. More detailed information should be publishable as data become more robust.

The results of the entire Minnesota Job Vacancy Survey can be found at www.PositivelyMinnesota.com/jvs

[1] Occupational Information Network, www.onetcenter.org/green/emerging.html

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