You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Messer and Tim Stenebek on Bloomberg Radio. We're going to turn our attention to COP twenty eight as ENVO envoys representing more than one hundred and ninety nations are gathering in Dubai this week for the UN's annual Climate Change Conference. The summit did get underway today and just among those issues green hiring. I didn't know, but yeah, I guess it makes sense.
This is a thing, Carol.
Right, businesses are hiring, are using green hiring to recruit hire environmentally friendly employees, Companies looking to seek initiatives to transform sustainability and climate change. And I guess they want a certain type of worker.
That's true. And there's another issue emerging in this and it's called green ceiling, Carols. So where nine to ten women lack a single green skill or green work experience according to some data from LinkedIn. So even the women are joining the green talent ranks at a faster rate than men, progress isn't as close enough when it comes to the gender in these skills.
For story we've heard before, all right, So joining us now is some depth on the subject to Sue Duke. She's vice president of Global public Policy and Economic graph over at LinkedIn. She does us on Zoom from Dublin, Ireland. I'm so great to have you here with us, Sue, how are you and talk to us a little bit about green skills and green hiring.
It's great to be here. Thank you so much for having me. Workers going green and jobs going green has been a very consistent and growing trend on our platform, and over the past year, even while hiring in the broader economy has slowed down, we've continued to see that trend speed right up, as workers with green skills are in demand and being hired at a much higher rate than workers who don't.
Can you tell me what green skills are? Though? Go take a step back for me, because I'm like, what is Why are those different than your skills in general?
Great question. A green skill is a skill that's either taking pollution out of the environment or conserving natural resources. So think of a skill like sustainable design. That's a great example. Sustainable design is a skill that's being used across a whole host of green jobs, but it's also a skill that we see showing off in a host of traditional jobs. It's being used by construction workers, interior designers,
park managers. So we see these green skills that are focused on making economic activities more sustainable being used not just in green jobs per se, but in a whole host of traditional jobs as well.
So how do you actually acquire green skills?
What we are seeing, as you said, is that workers moving into this space typically have some kind of green experience or green skill. Often they're coming from a stem background of science, technology, engineering, or maths background. And that's, of course because a lot of the green economy is focused on the fundamentals of maths and science. What we
need is to help workers acquire these skills. And what that means is that we need governments, companies, and workers all coming together to invest in and expand green upskilling and reskilling programs so that workers are getting these skills, acquiring these skills, and applying these skills across all industries across the country.
Hey, Sue, give you an idea. You know, I love you know LinkedIn. There is so much data and information that I'm sure you guys see on a regular basis, on a daily basis, So when it comes to green jobs in general, I'm curious. Can you give me an idea of how many jobs that are posted or that you see, or that you see talked about or people with profiles, how much is actually somehow connected to the green economy.
What we see is that the green economy, so the green renewable energy economy, that is growing very, very significantly. So we have seen that renewable energy sector grow its share of workers over twenty six percent in over the twenty six countries that we've studied for this particular report over the past number of years. So growth there is very very strong, very sustained, and we fully expect that
to continue. There is then the rest of the economy, and that is also a space that needs to transition to net zero. And what we see there, in fact, is that the vast, vast majority of green skills showing up out there are concentrated in those sectors everything from construction to utilities, to manufacturing to retail. That's where we see these green skills popping up. But that's also where
we see the skills shortage. Right. We continue to see companies in every sector and in every country in the world at a disadvantage when it comes to being able to recruit the skills that they need to power this transition.
Well, you talk about a disadvantage, and we mentioned earlier the green ceiling, why is it that women also have an issue also in this particular corner of the market when it comes to this kind of gender skills gap.
Yeah, you're absolutely right. We see a very significant gender gap opening up when it comes to this transition, and just as worrying, we're actually seeing that gap grow over
the past number of years. We look at when it is that workers are transitioning into these kind of roles, and one of the drivers for this gap is that often, as I said, workers are coming from a stem from science, technology, engineering and maths background, and women has been well done documented are often on the back foot and are there a low representation when in those careers. Then we're seeing
that flow through to these green jobs. And the second piece goes back to the green economy, those green renewable energy economy that you spoke to, and they're once again women are on the back foot and have historically been very strongly underrepresented in those kind of industries. So there's a big gap to be made up there as well.
Wait, so help me out. So is it just a case of women are not getting the education in the skills, or is it they're not learning on the job. What is it that is creating that gap? Does it start with education? And not enough women still in STEM, which we talk a lot about here at Bloomberg.
That's certainly part of the driver that workers with the background and STEM are finding it much easier to transition into these roles, and therefore women who have a low representation in those kind of backgrounds, in turn, are finding it more difficult to transition into the green economy. But it's also exactly as you say, it comes back to this green skills issues, both for men and for women.
We have got to start investing in these reskilling and up skilling programs so that we're equipping both men and women with these in demand green skills so that we can plug this gap and get to grip with this mismatch in green skills that's out there and growing all the time.
One thing I want to ask you, Sue, I do wonder STEM, stems and demand. Right, we talk about every company is a technology company, right, They've got data, they've got to parsit, they've got you know, a lot of technological systems that they've got to maintain. But having said that, does the green industry not pay as well as maybe a worker that goes to Silicon Valley or a big tech company or a big financial firm.
What we see very clearly is that workers with green skills are getting hired at a higher rate than workers who don't. So all the indications are that acquiring these green skills are going to be very good for your future career, for your future employability, and of course it's for the planet.
But my point is that they're getting what they need is a STEM background, right. A STEM background is also what is desired by almost every company, right because they're technology companies. They need data people, they need people who understand math technology. So I'm just wondering, are the workers that are needed for the green economy getting rude to go elsewhere where they are getting they're making more money.
Basically, there is certainly challenges in attracting talent into this space, but I think what we're increasingly seeing are these growing opportunities in this space. Right, This huge demand is out there growing all the time, and we will increasingly see workers taking up these opportunities as companies go out to find this talent and develop and nurture it in these industries.
It just sounds like demand is certainly out there, whether it's in certainly the green world and the greene como me Hey, Sue Duke, thank you so much, Vice president of Global Public Policy and Economic graph at LinkedIn, joining us on Zoom from Dublin, Ireland. This, of course is COP twenty eight is underway. We're gonna have a little bit more conversations. I think you know STEM in general, right, just so in demand.
It is, especially when you're thinking about technology, the growth and then the type of jobs that feed into it. But it's interesting when she talked about how not enough women in STELL and how that translates when you are looking at this green ceiling she's talking about.
I heard it before