More jobs is not necessarily a benefit

From Climate Scepticism

BY JIT

(Prompted by Mark’s piece about solar panel manufacturing in the EU.)

Last year, I plotted some figures showing elementary facts about UK energy use. One thing I didn’t plot was jobs in energy.

Now, Mark frequently points out green job losses and other failures in Where Did All the Green Jobs Go? What I’m going to show here is how much energy the UK consumes, and how many workers provide that energy.

At this point I should mention the obvious point: jobs in energy are a cost, unless you are exporting energy and getting paid for it. The key metric is productivity. You cannot argue that we need more farmers (I’m sorry, farmers, I love you!) unless the quantity of produced food goes up. You don’t employ more gardeners… if your garden is shrinking…

The first figure shows, on two separate Y axes: (i) the UK’s final consumption of energy in thousands of tonnes of oil equivalent and (ii) the number of jobs in the energy industries, in thousands.

The UK’s energy consumption peaked at the turn of the millennium and has been declining ever since. There are a number of reasons for this, and depending what your beliefs are, it is possible to battle over those reasons. More efficient use of energy? Loss of energy-intensive industries?

(Of interest also is the fact that the UK ceased to be a net exporter of energy in 2004.)

The number of jobs in energy declined from the 70s onwards (and probably since before then; the statistical release I have to hand begins in 1980 for jobs but only 1990 for energy). This reflects the loss of jobs in coal (and inasmuch as coal use switched to gas, reflects an improvement of productivity). Employment in energy reached a nadir in 2005 and then began to climb.

This climb was not matched by a climb in energy consumption. It occurred as energy consumption was falling.

Now, if you divide one set of numbers by t’other, you get the productivity of employment in energy. Productivity maxed out in 2005, and has been sliding ever since.

So:

Maximum energy use: 2000

Last year as net exporter of energy: 2003

Peak productivity: 2005

I leave it to readers to interpret the meaning of these figures and dates.

The data came from here.

Image: Archive.org (1910 ish).