The shortage of wind technicians is one of the greatest threats facing the wind energy industry. While calling it a threat might sound dramatic, it’s more accurate to say that this deficiency represents the industry’s weakest link. Many countries are facing an alarmingly high demand for wind techs in the coming years to meet climate goals. In the US, the Bureau of Labor Statistics projects a 45% job growth in this field by 2032, highlighting the urgent need for change.
Several major industry players in Europe as well as in the US have established apprenticeship programs, which is good, but statistics from every corner of the world clearly show those programs won’t fill all the jobs. Some say that the market will sort that out. But it won’t; not unless we do a better job of reaching high school students interested in technical jobs, before they’re directed into the better recognized jobs in the fossil fuels industry.
This isn’t a gloom and doom story, though. We have seen the industry respond to this issue creatively over the past two years. Through The Uptime Wind Energy Podcast, we have interviewed technicians, representatives from schools and training facilities, safety equipment manufacturers, and recruiters, whose jobs depend on fixing the shortage of jobs in wind.
