Projected employment effects of renewable energy production in China are shown in Table 6.3 below.<sup>28</sup> This table reveals enormous differences in the employment-generating effects of different forms of renewable energy production, from around 7-8 thousand jobs per US$ billion of value added for wind power and solar photo-voltaics, to almost 200,000 jobs per US$ billion for biomass. This reflects great differences in skill levels as well as labor intensities (most jobs in the wind and solar PV sectors are high-skilled, while low-skilled farmers are employed in biomass production), as well as induced effects on imports (much of the equipment used for wind and solar PV is imported). The table however vividly illustrates that the employment effects of renewable energy production in developing countries is likely to vary dramatically across renewable energy sources.

**Table 6.3: Employment and Value Added in Chinese Renewable Energy Production. Employment in Numbers of Workers, Output in US$ Million.**

|Renewable<br>sector|Generation|Manufacturing|Service|Total|Output<br>value,<br>US$ mill|Employment<br>per US$ bn|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|Wind|6000|15000|1200|22200|3375|6600|
|Solar PV|2000|38000|15000|55000|6750|8150|
|Solar<br>thermal||400000|200000|600000|5400|111000|
|Biomass|1000|15000|250000|266000|1350|197000|
|Total|9000|468000|466000|943000|16875|55900|

Source: Renner, Sweeney and Kubit (2008).

It follows that accounting for the macroeconomic effects of a stimulus package simply by a “number of jobs” created is often highly misleading. Many or most jobs in the wind or solar PV sector are, as noted, likely to be high-skilled; work done in these sectors can contribute substantially also to future technical development and growth (e.g., by “moving down the learning curve”). Most jobs in solar-thermal and biomass production are by contrast lowerskilled, with less scope for technological enhancement and learning effects for the individuals employed.

A recent World Bank study (Schwartz et al 2009) examines implications of fiscal stimulus in Latin American countries. Some calculated effects from this study are given in Table 6.4. Note that employment effects there include _only_ workers directly employed by the projects; no attempt has been made to calculate “secondary” effects (of procured deliveries of goods and services) or “tertiary” employment effects (from further rounds such as multiplier effects of generated spending). In that sense the numbers must be interpreted quite differently e g from those in the Houser et al. Study for the US, which accounts for such effects. Still, we find quite sizable employment effects in many cases, notably for projects in the water sector in Honduras; in contrast the Brazilian projects considered give smaller direct employment (this is most so for hydropower projects where the direct employment effect is marginal).<sup>29</sup>

> 28 Note that the per-unit employment figures in Table 6.3 are not directly comparable to the figures in Tables 6.16.2: the former indicate value added per job; the latter are fiscal costs of creating additional green jobs.

> 29 Note that macro effects on employment could also in this case, in principle, be overestimated if the workers engaged in the respective projects have good employment opportunities elsewhere. However, the analysis team assessed such alternative employment opportunities as very small on the whole.

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