Green job boom highlights worker shortage

Here's some rare good news for laid-off tech employees: green jobs are rising fast, and don't look to be slowing down any time soon.

Why it matters: In fact, job postings are growing faster than companies can fill them, a concern clean energy groups have said could result in worker shortages in fields that are instrumental to the green energy transition.

Zoom in: A new report from recruiting company ZipRecruiter finds that so-called green jobs — any job working in clean energy or climate technology — have soared in recent years.

• Salaries have risen alongside available jobs, the report finds, as companies look to sweeten the deal for prospective employees.

By the numbers: The average annual salary for a natural resources specialist, one of the most common jobs, is just over $67,000.

• The annual salary for an environmental protection specialist clocks in just under $82,000, and environmental consultants stand to make about $60,000 per year on average.
• The highest-paid roles on the list are the usual suspects: chief sustainability officers, which are in the C-suite, and environmental engineers. They make roughly $111,000 per year and $89,000 per year, respectively.

Yes, but: The report highlights how many available jobs are going unfilled, even as the job market tightens at the same time as large tech companies conduct sweeping rounds of layoffs.

The bottom line: The hiring crunch is pronounced in climate tech and clean energy, which is great news for job seekers looking to make a career shift in an otherwise tenuous employment market.