LAS VEGAS — Hiring in the alternative-energy industry will pick up in the next 12 months, though it will take some time before so-called green jobs will become a bigger part of the U.S. job market, Labor Secretary Hilda Solis said Monday.
“Once you start seeing more investments made in our economy recovering, as we stabilize and we get people back to work, then I think there’ll be more interest in expanding,” Solis said. “There’ll be more, hopefully, credit available for this expansion because there will be more confidence because that’s what we’re lacking right now — that investment and confidence in the market.”
After a terrible start to the year, there are signs of a rebound for alternative energy, in part because of a push from the Obama administration. Yet there is a split between the state and federal levels over whether there are better ways to stimulate the job market.
The second National Clean Energy Summit in Las Vegas, where Solis spoke with The Associated Press, drew a high-profile list of alternative-energy backers, including former President Bill Clinton, Energy Secretary Steven Chu and U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nevada.
“The economic crisis, the security crisis and the climate crisis are all intertwined, and the common thread running through them is our absurd and dangerous overdependence on carbon- based fuels,” said Al Gore, the former vice president. “If your grab hold of that thread and pull on it, all three of these crises will unravel, and we’ll hold in our hand the solution to all three of them — that is to make a transition to a low-carbon economy and to put people to work doing it.”
