Green Jobs in Asia and the Pacific: Facts and Figures

Asia and the Pacific

100 million total unemployed people in Asia and the Pacific recorded in 2009, up from 80 million when job losses began in 2007.
1 billion people are classified as working poor (living on less than $2 per day) in Asia and the Pacific.
In South East Asia in the first nine months of 2009, unemployment increased by roughly 10% and labour productivity decreased by 2.5%, a remarkable drop in such a short period of time. In Cambodia alone, a quarter of the garment sector factories have closed.
The world’s working age population will grow from 4.5 billion in 2010 to 5.2 billion in 2025. Based on current projected demographic trends, Asia will be home to 300 million of these 700 million additional workers.
The projected number of green jobs over the next two decades could reach 100 million worldwide. This represents about 2% of the future global workforce of over 5 billion by 2030. Some of these green jobs will be newly created jobs, while others will be substitutes for existing jobs. If a similar percentage of the 2.5 billion working age people in Asia in 2025 work in green jobs, Asia would be home to 50 million green jobs.

Employment in high carbon intensive sectors accounts for about 38 per cent of jobs across the world.
The global market for environmental products and services is projected to double from $1,370 billion per year in 2008 to $2,740 billion by 2020
2.3 million people have in recent years found new jobs in the renewable energy sector alone, and the potential for job growth in the sector is huge. Employment in alternative energies may rise to 2.1 million in wind and 6.3 million in solar power by 2030.
Renewable energy generates more jobs than employment in fossil fuels. Projected investments of $630 billion by 2030 would translate into at least 20 million additional jobs in the renewable energy sector.
A worldwide transition to energy-efficient buildings would create millions of jobs, as well as “greening” existing employment for many of the estimated 111 million people already working in the construction sector.
if a price was imposed on CO2 emissions, and if the resulting revenues were used to cut labour taxes, then employment would rise by 0.5 percent by 2014. This is equivalent to over 14.3 million net new jobs for the world economy as a whole. And even larger gains would arise due to technological change induced by green policies.

Since a major share of a worker’s income goes to the purchase of goods and services, mainly at the local level, every one job created in forestry generates an additional 1.5 to 2.5 jobs in the economy.
Japan’s green business sector, including renewable energy firms and developers of energy-efficient technologies, currently employs 1.4 million people and generates sales of $745 billion.15 The Ministry of the Environment aims to expand the sector to $1 trillion by 2020, creating employment for 2.2 million workers.
The Republic of Korea aims at boosting the use of renewable energy from the current 2% to more than 11% by 2030, as well as creating an added value of $3.6 billion and 50,000 jobs in the new green financial industry by 2018.
China is expected to include an estimated $140 billion for green investments to boost its $17 billion renewable energy sector, which already employs about 1 million workers, and also to improve waste management, prevent water pollution, and promote energy and forest conservation.

In June 2009, governments, employers’ and workers’ organizations from the ILO’s 183 member States adopted a Global Jobs Pact that supports a shift to a low-carbon, environmentally-friendly economy as a way to accelerate a jobs recovery.

Sources:

http://www.fao.org/docrep/012/i1025e/i1025e02.htm

http://www.ilo.org/asia/info/public/features/lang--en/WCMS_115492/index.htm

http://www.asiabusinesscouncil.org/docs/GreenJobs.pdf

http://www.ilo.org/global/About_the_ILO/Media_and_public_information/Press_releases/lang--en/WCMS_098481/index.htm

http://www.ilo.org/global/About_the_ILO/Media_and_public_information/Feature_stories/lang--en/WCMS_119257/index.htm