Worldwide employment in the renewable energy sector reached 12.7 million last year, a jump of 700,000 new jobs in just 12 months, despite the lingering effects of COVID-19 and the growing energy crisis, according to this new report by the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) and the International Labour Organization (ILO)

The ninth edition of IRENA’s series, Renewable energy and jobs: Annual review 2022, produced in collaboration with the International Labour Organization (ILO), provides the latest estimates of renewable energy employment globally. Based on a wide range of studies and reports the report surveys the global renewable energy employment landscape as of 2021. It discusses experiences in selected countries with respect to deployment trends, policy contexts and pandemic impacts, with an eye to job numbers as well as job quality. This edition spotlights issues of job quality and labour standards in the mining and processing of raw materials inputs (upstream) and in the handling of materials once renewable energy generating facilities are decommissioned (downstream). [2]