A Conversion Affecting Many Sectors Technological and environmental changes are causing changes in almost all occupations, but some sectors will be especially affected. Clean technologies have a high potential for job creation, although after an initial boom, these will decrease as they become automated. In contrast, it takes 248 employees to produce the same amount using thermal solar systems and 542 using wind-driven turbines. A study has revealed that in the United States an investment in renewable energies of 115,000 millions a year over ten years would do away with 1 million places of work in conventional energies, but 3 million new jobs would be gained. Wind power is a rapidly growing sector Recycling is a field which is growing and still has a long way to go.
Ecological design is a source of work which is just beginning to get off the ground.
Designing products that make efficient use of resources and that can be easily reused, dismantled and recycled will keep many people occupied in the coming years. The possibility of reparation favours the second-hand market and reuse means there is less extraction of materials and less emissions of pollutants. An example may make this more obvious. In the United States, recycling of aluminium provides twice as many jobs as the primary production of this metal. Recycling provides more jobs than dumping or incineration, and these jobs are becoming consolidated.