US clean energy workforce shrank by nearly 37,000 jobs in 2025 as federal support was rolled back
Electric vehicle jobs took the steepest relative hit, while grid storage was the sector's brightest spot.
The United States lost nearly 37,000 clean energy jobs in 2025, the sector's first annual decline after four years of growth, according to a new analysis by the business group Environmental Entrepreneurs (E2) reported Friday by Julian Spector in Canary Media.
The country ended the year with 3.52 million clean energy jobs, down about 1%, erasing roughly 40% of the gains made the year before. Overall energy employment also fell between 2024 and 2025, and clean energy's losses roughly tracked its share of the energy workforce.
The decline came in President Donald Trump's first year back in office, as the Republican-led Congress repealed renewable energy tax credits and consumer incentives for electric vehicles and home electrification, and the administration froze or clawed back billions of dollars meant for local clean energy projects. Installations nonetheless stayed at record levels, with solar the top choice for new power plants.
Clean vehicle jobs fell 2.4%, the largest relative loss, after the federal electric vehicle tax credit ended in September 2025. Energy efficiency shed 21,443 jobs, the biggest drop in absolute terms. Storage and grid modernization grew 3.2%, helped by grid battery tax credits that survived the budget law.
E2 also counted nearly 150 clean energy manufacturing, generation and storage projects that were canceled or downsized in 2025. Those projects had been expected to create almost 85,000 jobs.
This brief is based on an article published Oct. 16, 2026, by Julian Spector in Canary Media. Read the original: https://www.canarymedia.com/articles/clean-energy-jobs/trump-us-employment-falls-data-2025
This article was produced with the assistance of AI tools and reviewed by an editor before publication.
