NEW YORK, NY, USA, 2 November 2022 —A new Deloitte Center for Sustainable Progress report released today found that more than 800 million jobs—about one-quarter of the global workforce—are highly vulnerable to being disrupted by climate change, from weather extremes to the impacts of transitioning to a low-carbon economy. However, policy makers and business leaders can unleash significant economic growth and help create more than 300 million new jobs around the world by 2050 by building a new Green Collar workforce and making decarbonisation work.
Deloitte’s latest report, “Work toward net zero: The rise of the Green Collar workforce in a just transition,” builds on modeling from Deloitte’s Turning Point series to present a more detailed look at the impacts of decarbonisation, specifically on jobs. An investment in skills—to create a new Green Collar workforce—is necessary to realize the USD$43 trillion economic dividend identified from coordinated action on climate change. It also explores how policy action to invest in skills development can create a more equitable transition to net-zero globally, creating opportunity and progress.
Deloitte’s research found that climate extremes and uncoordinated shifts away from fossil fuels towards renewables can create substantial risks to millions of workers around the world. To identify the jobs most vulnerable to climate change and decarbonisation, the Deloitte Economics Institute constructed a new Job Vulnerability Index. This methodology helps pinpoint the regions and industries needing new assistance and policy interventions.
Building a new Green Collar workforce
The economics of the transition to net-zero emissions will both require—and create—a Green Collar workforce, which will be characterised by new types of work, skills and occupation and will remake our economy of the future.
The Deloitte Economics Institute highlights that better economic growth will boost the demand for many existing jobs, while the transformation to decarbonise the economy will see some jobs transformed, with new skills and new categories of jobs being created as technology and new economic markets emerge. The report identifies two categories of types of work that are more exposed to the risks of unmanaged costs from the transition to net-zero and climate change damages—those exposed to physical damages from climate change and those who work in high-emissions intensive industries. This underscores the importance of coordinating around the future of these workers and industries.
“Our analysis shows that 80% of the skills that will be required for jobs in our increasingly decarbonised economy already exist. It’s clear that these skills and the Green Collar workforce will be the driver of the transition—not consequence of transition,” says Dr. Pradeep Philip, Partner, Deloitte Economics Institute. “With the right policy support from governments globally, we can create more jobs, better outcomes for workers and a more equitable distribution of the opportunities created in a net-zero economy.”
Ensuring a just transition with public policy
Deloitte’s report outlines how proactive public policy can support vulnerable regions, industries and workers during the transition and build the new industrial complex of the future. The Green Collar workforce policy agenda developed by the Deloitte Economics Institute can serve as a guide to actions decision-makers should consider in order to help industries and workers adapt to global decarbonisation.
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