With survey data showing that 56% of U.S. energy industry workers overall have fewer than 10 years of service, the energy sector will need to redirect some of its focus from recruitment to training, mentorship, and other programs to develop a younger, less experienced workforce, the Center for Energy Workforce Development said in a report, “2023 Energy Workforce Survey Results.”
CEWD has been looking at the demographics of the workforce since 2006 and has conducted what has been called the Gaps in the Energy Workforce Pipeline Report for 15 years.
The bi-annual study, newly named the Energy Workforce Report, explores the size of the utility workforce, demographic composition, forecasted retirements, and attrition data to support industry companies with their strategic workforce planning.
The American Public Power Association and a number of other energy trade associations contributed to the project.
“With historic hiring and training needs before us, business leaders must prioritize people-preparedness to support the energy transition,” said Missy Henriksen, Executive Director at the CEWD.
“Companies must understand the make-up of their workforce and expected hiring demand with more certainty than ever before, despite the altered playing field. This year’s report underscores some of the changes that are afoot and why strategic workforce planning must be an essential business imperative,” she said.
Forty-one utility companies participated in this survey cycle, representing almost 315,000 jobs, an increase of 1.1% from the 2021 survey cycle. The sample represents well over half (-56%) of all utility jobs in the U.S.1, and the size of the sample is sufficiently large to allow for inferences and observations about the industry as a whole (while also being cautious in analyzing trends that may be a reflection of the changing make-up of survey participants).
The largest category represented is combination electric and gas utilities, followed by electric cooperatives and electric utilities.
As in previous surveys, CEWD focused the 2023 analysis on four key job categories: Lineworkers, Technicians, Plant/Field Operators, and Engineers. In addition, we continued to track Emerging Technology jobs (which now includes data scientists, as well as solar, wind, storage, and electric vehicle (EV) engineers and technicians) as a separate category that was added in 2021.
“The five key job categories included in the data analysis, now comprise 40% of the total utility workforce, up from 32% in 2021, and are critical for the generation, transmission and distribution of electricity and natural gas across the country,” CEWD said.
Of the remaining 60% non-key jobs, 37% are corporate services jobs, including human resources, customer service, finance, information technology, as well as other occupations essential for the sector.
The remaining 23% of all jobs are not allocated to the corporate services categories, and they are not included in the key jobs as defined by the survey, CEWD noted.
The survey findings are based on the responses from electric and natural gas energy companies. The data provided by participating companies included information on age, years of service, hires and attrition, along with information on the diversity and veteran composition of the workforce. See the end of this report for additional information on the Survey Methodology and survey process improvement efforts.
Key Findings
The report lists key findings in four areas: 1) Aging Workforce and Retirements; 2) Growth in Emerging Technology Jobs; 3) New normal post-COVID; and 4) Trends in Diversity, Equity and Inclusion.
Aging Workforce and Retirements
Since 2006, when CEWD first began to measure workforce age, the industry has seen a consistent progression towards a younger workforce, the report noted.
Efforts the industry has undertaken related to energy education pathways in high schools, community colleges and universities, appear to have had an impact on increasing the talent pool for these high-skill positions. Indeed, the "gap" in the workforce that was once the namesake of this report (i.e., the lack of younger employees prepared to backfill for an expected surge in retirees) has largely been filled.
Today, Millennials represent the largest category of current industry employment by generation.
“However, this dramatic transformation of the make-up of the workforce may present its own challenges, including higher percentages of younger and less experienced employees,” CEWD noted.
Survey data shows that 56% of workers overall have less than 10 years of service.
This number is even higher in certain key job categories. Engineers and line workers were both above 60%.
“To address this trend, the industry will need to redirect some of its focus from recruitment to training, mentorship, and other programs to develop its younger, less experienced workforce,” the report said.
Growth in Emerging Technology Jobs
The 2023 Survey was the second cycle where CEWD collected data on emerging technology jobs “and early trends suggest it is a significant growth area,” it said.
The survey defines emerging technology jobs as positions involved in the generation and distribution of electrical energy generated by renewable means, advanced metering, advanced utility or utility of the future, the development of advanced statistical models, machine learning models, artificial intelligence applications, and electric vehicle fleet management and maintenance.
Though the overall number of these jobs is still a relatively small percentage of the total (2.6%), it has increased sharply, growing ~4x from 2021 to 2023.
CEWD broke this segment down further to look at the age distribution of employees and the most common job titles. The age distribution in these jobs -- with a significant portion in mid- to late-career age ranges -- suggests that people with experience are moving into these emerging tech roles and they are not just being filled by younger workers. The highest percentage of emerging tech employees is found in the 38-42 age category.
With respect to the implications for workforce planning, the report said that the changing generation mix and decarbonization trends will very likely result in a continued decline in existing generation jobs. Some of these jobs may be repurposed as retiring coal plants are converted to natural gas or other purposes (e.g., solar plus storage, small modular nuclear reactors), CEWD noted.
“At the same time, the energy transition is expected to require a significant number of new Emerging Technology jobs, which could more than offset declines elsewhere,” the report said.
Examples of projects requiring these new jobs include construction and operations of utility scale solar and wind projects, electric vehicle infrastructure development and construction and building and refining novel analyses of Automated Meter Infrastructure data.
“To the extent utilities choose to build these capabilities inhouse, this transition will require careful management of the workforce changes and a focus on programs to retrain and reskill displaced workers to be able to perform new energy jobs. Retraining will be key given competition for these workers from non-utilities and broader workforce shortages,” CEWD said.
New normal post-COVID
The 2023 survey is the second to be conducted since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic and the first opportunity to analyze its potential lasting impacts on the energy workforce.
Looking at retirement and non-retirement attrition along with total hires dating back to 2008, data shows that both non-retirement attrition and total attrition have increased significantly the last two years and in 2022 hit their highest levels since the survey began. Hires to replace those workers are also at an all-time high. “This follows a dip in these metrics in 2020 in the midst of the pandemic and the uncertainty it brought.”
Breaking down non-retirement attrition by function, non-nuclear generation was the function with the sharpest increase from 2021 to 2022. Apart from gas transmission and distribution, all other functions experienced an increase in 2022.
“We will continue to monitor this data in future cycles. It is too early to determine if these elevated levels of attrition reflect a new normal post-COVID or if they indicate some natural adjustments after a period of very low turnover during the height of COVID. If this turns out to be a lasting trend, the industry will need to further increase focus on or improve retention efforts and programs to encourage workers to build long-term careers in energy,” CEWD said.
Trends in Diversity, Equity and Inclusion
The 2023 survey represents the first effort to collect and analyze demographic data and information on DE&I policy adoption.
Participating companies were asked to report their adoption of 13 different DE&I practices with four choices ranging from "currently in place" to "no plans to implement."
CEWD found favorable adoption with nine of these practices currently in place at 75% or more of participating organizations. The areas with the highest adoption relate to having established strategies and goals as well as programs for attracting diverse talent. Areas with lowest adoption relate to board training and incorporating DE&I goals into performance evaluations and executive pay plans.
While diverse hiring practices seem to be making an impact, data highlights the potential need for programs and concerted organizational effort focused on retention, CEWD said.
“A combined focus on hiring and retention shows promise for creating a more diverse workforce that better represents the communities that utilities serve,” the report said.
APPA Offers Members a Wide Range of Workforce-Related Resources
APPA members have access to a wide range of workforce-related resources as a result of APPA’s membership in CEWD.
