Renewable energy and the promise of jobs, regional regeneration and first nations opportunities

ABSTRACT

Carbon-exposed regions tied to the fossil-fuel industry have uncertain futures. The promise of regional regeneration and job stimulus through a transition to renewable energy has been presented by governments, environmental organisations and some unions as a viable solution to their dilemmas. In this paper, we critically evaluate the job generation and local development possibilities from two high profile renewable energy initiatives – offshore wind farms and hydrogen hubs. Our starting point is that the debate to date has tended to be very narrowly focused on ‘employment estimates for renewable versus fossil fuel industries’ without consideration of where these jobs will be located and the nature of these jobs. Adopting a case study method, we consider the development of offshore wind farms and hydrogen hubs in Australia and their location within global value chains (GVCs) and the temporal and spatial dimensions of work required for developing, operating and maintaining these emerging industries. We demonstrate how the low labour intensity of ongoing work in offshore wind and hydrogen hubs means that new jobs created are mostly in short bursts of temporary labour in project construction.

KEYWORDS:

• Renewable energy
• regional regeneration
• global value chains
• First Nations Peoples
• employment

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Al Rainnie

Al Rainnie is an Adjunct professor at UniSA Business and Department of management Curtin University.

Darryn Snell

Darryn Snell is an Associate Professor in the School of Management and coordinator of the Work in Transition Research Group and co-coordinator the Skills, Training and Industry Research Network at RMIT University, Melbourne.