The Solar Industry Has More Union Jobs Than Previously Thought

The Solar Industry Has More Union Jobs Than Previously Thought

Every year, the industry-backed Solar Foundation puts out a job census based on surveys of companies manufacturing, selling and installing photovoltaic panels across the country. For the past several years, the annual report has excluded how many solar workers belong to unions. 

“The last time we were tracking union labor, it was something like 3% of the overall workforce,” Ed Gilliland, the foundation’s senior director, told HuffPost in 2019. “It was a small number. We think it’s probably still pretty small.”

So when the group compiled its survey results this year, Gilliland reached a surprising conclusion: More than 10% of the industry had now unionized.