The report compiles and analyzes existing data on green job creation and reflects the enormous potential that these jobs still have in Spain. Reading the report is particularly interesting at present, since the country is facing very high levels of unemployment, exceeding 50% among the youth labor force, and therefore implementing measures to create jobs in sectors that ensure environmental and social sustainability and guarantee a successful exit from the current economic crisis is urgentely needed.
The green economy offers huge opportunities for job creation, many of which are already underway in the Spanish economy. These range from sectors traditionally associated with environmental content, such as renewable energy and recycling, other emerging fields of green jobs, such as sustainable mobility and finally activities in the so-called traditional sectors with potential for conversion into sustainable activities such as production concrete, steel or paper.
According to these studies, the country recorded 400,000 to over half a million green jobs, equivalent to 2.2% of total employment in Spain, contributing to the Spanish economy of approximately 25,000 million per year, a 2, 4% of gross domestic product (GDP). Since 1998 the number of green jobs has increased by 235%.
However, the severity of the recession in Spain and the austerity measures being put in place in the country greatly hinder green job creation in both the near and long term. The implementation of these measures is particularly ironic and contradictory taking into account that European studies show that green sectors have not only weathered the crisis better than the non green ones but have actually created more jobs. That is why without any doubt green jobs are particularly well placed in the scenario being discussed at present, that includes new investments aiming at the economic recovery of different economies, including the Spanish one.
Sustainlabour has worked on this case study in collaboration with the Biodiversity Foundation and the efforts under Green Jobs Program of the ILO (International Labour Organization) to build a knowledge base on global best practices of policies that aim at creating green jobs.
You can read the executive summary and full report here
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