employment

Umwelt-Indikator

Indicator: Employment in environmental protection

A graph shows the employment in environmental protection and their share in the overall employment for 2002 until 2021 – in two-year-steps. The share was 7.1 percent in 2021, whereas it was only 3.7 percent in 2002.

In 2021, around 3.2 million people worked in environmental protection. That was 7.1 % of all employees.Of this, over half are environment-related services.Since 2002, employment in environmental protection has risen steadily and environmental protection has established itself as an important factor for the labour market. read more

Indicator: Employment in the renewable energy sector

Graph: After a strong increase since 2000, employment has been declining since 2012 due to the sharp job losses in solar energy. There was a slight increase from 2015 to 2016. Most jobs were created in the wind energy and biomass sectors. Between 2016 and 2019, there were sharp declines. By 2022, there were significant increases again, especially in solar energy and geothermal energy.

387,700 people worked in the renewable energy sector in 2022.Employment in the renewable energy sector reflects the development of the German market.Strong employment growth until 2011 was followed by a pronounced decline that resulted from the widespread collapse of the domestic photovoltaic industry.Only since 2019, employment has been rising again. read more

Economy | Consumption

Environmental protection and employment

a man sits outside at the desk

The number of people working in environmental protection has increased steadily in recent years. In 2017, more than 2.8 million people were working in the environmental protection sector. As environmental protection measures often benefit labour-intensive sectors and replace imports with domestic value-added, the net employment effects of environmental protection are often also positive. read more

The Umweltbundesamt

For our environment