Missing the Point on Energy and Jobs

Two emails I received yesterday delivered press releases from two organizations with very different agendas, both emphasizing the impact of energy on jobs. With US unemployment showing little response to the economic stimulus, the rebounding stock market, or the "green shoots" appearing in some sectors, it's understandable that companies, groups and even the government would want to play up the direct employment impact of key initiatives or policies. Yet when it comes to energy, I believe much of this effort misses the mark. Our employment goal for energy should not be to have as many people working in the energy sector as we can, but to have the most efficient and cost-effective energy sector possible, in order to promote job creation and retention in the rest of the economy, where the vast majority of jobs are found. Our decisions about energy policy should not depend on the creation of a few green jobs.

I'm hardly suggesting that energy jobs are insignificant or inconsequential. I've spent my entire career in energy, and I recommend it without hesitation as a field in which one's contributions can have a measurable impact on society, often with better remuneration than in many other pursuits. The Oil & Natural Gas Industry Labor-Management Committee isn't wrong to stand up for the millions of industry-related jobs at stake in the current Congressional debate on energy industry tax benefits, any more than Wind Capital Group is to highlight the 2,500 jobs associated with the supply-chain effects of their Lost Creek Wind Project. But as important as preserving or expanding energy-related jobs appears today, it is even more essential for the long-term interests of the country that we not obsess about this one aspect of energy, to the detriment of others that will affect overall US employment and international competitiveness long after the unemployment rate has returned to its normal range.

Putting this into perspective requires recalling that by its nature energy is a capital-intensive business, rather than a labor-intensive one. One way to gauge that is to look at the labor productivity of energy companies. The latest annual report of my former employer, Chevron, reveals that on average in 2008 its 61,675 employees each accounted for $4.3 million of revenue, resulting in nearly $700,000 of pre-tax net income (after covering their own salaries and all other expenses.) In the utility sector, the comparable figures for FPL Group were $1.1 million and $137,000, respectively. Even a small, rapidly-growing renewable technology firm such as First Solar enjoyed revenue and pre-tax profit per employee in 2008 of approximately $354,000 and $132,000, respectively. With its high labor productivity, the primary employment impact of energy occurs where it is consumed, not where it's produced, because energy is such a crucial input for so many sectors and the sine qua non of more than a few.

When legislation like the Kerry-Boxer climate bill, which includes many provisions that would make energy more expensive for consumers and businesses, is marketed as a jobs bill it merits a skeptical reception. Stimulating jobs in the 6-10% of the economy devoted to energy seems unlikely to compensate for the loss of jobs that would ensue throughout the broader economy, if climate legislation caused energy costs to soar. That may, however, be a necessary evil, and the question we should really be asking is not how many green jobs such legislation will create, but whether on balance its provisions are truly justified in order to address climate change--even if they resulted in a net loss of employment, as I strongly suspect they would. Unless the answer is an unequivocal yes, we could be setting our long-term energy policy on the basis of a metric that is only a minor contributor to either energy costs or total economic activity, for reasons that seem unlikely to stand the test of time.