Nov 19 -- The U.S. Department of Energy invites public comments to OMB by December 20, 2021 regarding its annual United States Energy and Employment Report for years 2022-2024.
The rapidly changing nature of energy production, distribution, and consumption throughout the U.S. economy is having a dramatic impact on job creation and economic competitiveness, but is inadequately understood and, in some sectors, incompletely measured by traditional labor market sources. The US Energy and Employment Report Survey will collect data from businesses in in-scope industries, quantifying and qualifying employment among energy activities, workforce demographics and the industry's perception on the difficulty of recruiting qualified workers.
The U.S. Energy Employment Report (USEER) began in 2016 at the recommendation of the first Department of Energy Quadrennial Energy Review to better track and understand employment within key energy sectors that have been difficult to impossible to follow using other publicly available data sources. The study combines surveys of businesses with public labor data to produce estimates of employment and workforce characteristics. Since 2016, when DOE first began tracking energy employment in the United States, the sector grew more than six percent by the end of 2019, responsible for 8.4 million jobs.
2021 USEER findings: In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic led to an unprecedented global shutdown and economic impacts—something even the traditionally strong energy sector wasn’t immune to. The USEER found that energy job totals reached 7.5 million by the end of 2020, a decrease of 840,000 jobs or 10% decline year-over-year. While there was a clear decline, there were also positive signs that the sector was on the rebound—at the pandemic’s peak in mid-2020 energy jobs had decreased by 1.4 million. By the end of 2020, 520,000 energy jobs had already returned. Additionally, employers that responded to the survey also signaled confidence in the upward employment trend continuing through 2021.
The report found that continued energy investments throughout the year actually prevented declines in some key areas, including:
Wind generation increased by 2,000 jobs (2 percent)
Battery storage increased by 800 jobs (1 percent)
Hybrid electric vehicles increased by 6,000 jobs (6 percent)
Electric vehicles also increased by 6,000 jobs (8 percent)
US Energy and Employment Report (USEER) webpage:
https://www.energy.gov/us-energy-employment-jobs-report-useer
DOE submission to OMB:
https://www.reginfo.gov/public/do/PRAViewICR?ref_nbr=202110-1910-005 Click on IC List for forms, View Supporting Documents for technical documentation. Submit comments through this site.
FR notice inviting public comments:
https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2021/10/26/2021-23254/agency-information-collection-extension (Note: comment due date is 30 days from proposal submission to OMB on November 19, 2021.)
For AEA members wishing to submit comments, "A Primer on How to Respond to Calls for Comment on Federal Data Collections" is available at
https://www.aeaweb.org/content/file?id=5806