Employment Trends in the Renewable Energy Sector

Abstract

The article aims to identify the changes in the number of employees in European Union (EU) countries in the renewable energy sector in 2018 compared to 2014. EurObserv’ER yearbooks were the source of data on employment and capacity for selected renewable energy sources. The paper uses descriptive and pair-wise comparison methods. The largest decreases in employment were observed among countries that are leaders in the RES market (e.g., Germany, France). On the other hand, the greatest increases in employment were determined by source development opportunities in a given country, e.g., biofuels in Romania, Poland, Hungary, or Lithuania. The conducted pair-wise comparison indicated that the relation between the change in the ranking position and the change in the number of employees was significant for EU countries, whose ranking positions are both in the first (combination AA – I) and the second ten (combination CC – II) in the RES sector. Moreover, the results of the statistical analysis indicated a significant relationship and p-value significance in 11 out of 12 variables adopted for correlation, covering the number of employed and installed capacity in selected RES sectors in 2014 and 2018.