Sources: U.S. Department of Energy, Climate Group, E2
Climate Week NYC opened Sunday in New York. More than 100,000 people are expected across the city through September 27, per the organizer, Climate Group, which runs the week alongside the United Nations General Assembly. There will be panels, pledges and a lot of talk about targets.
Here is the number worth bringing into every one of those rooms: 8.4 million. That is how many Americans work in energy, according to the Department of Energy's 2026 U.S. Energy and Employment Report, released this month. It is about 5 percent of the entire U.S. workforce.
Those are linemen, pipefitters, plant operators, electricians, welders, engineers and the crews that build and maintain everything in between. The climate conversation in Manhattan this week runs on their work.
Where the hiring is
The clearest growth in the new federal report is on the wires and pipes that move energy to homes and businesses. Transmission, distribution and storage added about 28,000 workers in 2025, reaching 1.5 million, per DOE.
Inside that total:
- Electric power transmission and distribution added 17,900 workers.
- Natural gas transmission and distribution added 12,500 workers, growth of 5 percent.
- Nuclear power added 2,300 workers, growth of 4 percent.
Every one of those jobs is a person with a hard hat and a paycheck. Grid work is local. You cannot offshore a substation crew or ship a distribution line upgrade overseas. When a utility builds, the jobs land in the county where the steel goes in the ground.
The paycheck
These are good jobs. The median energy sector salary was $63,000, per the DOE report. The national median is $51,000. That is a 24 percent premium, and many of these roles do not require a four year degree.
That matters to a young person deciding what comes after high school. It matters to a mid-career worker looking for something steadier. And it matters to the towns where these plants, lines and yards sit, because payroll becomes local spending and local tax base.
The pipeline is filling
Employers told DOE they are having a particularly hard time finding construction, installation, repair and electrically skilled workers. The good news is that more people are signing up to learn the trades.
New registered apprentices in the construction industry reached 112,000 in 2025, up 9 percent from 103,000 in 2024, per the report. Apprenticeships are the front door. You get paid while you learn, you finish with a credential, and you walk onto a job site that needs you.
Utilities, contractors and the building trades have been building that front door for years through lineworker schools, community college partnerships and union training centers. The numbers say it is working.
Clean energy is part of the same workforce
A lot of the talk in New York this week will center on clean energy. The workforce there is large and growing too. More than 3.5 million Americans worked in clean energy at the end of 2024, according to E2's Clean Jobs America analysis, released in December 2025. The sector added nearly 100,000 jobs that year. That's a growth of 2.8 percent.
The people doing that work are often the same people doing the rest of it. An electrician wires a solar array one month and a substation the next. A lineman strings transmission line regardless of what generates the power running through it. The energy workforce is one workforce.
What to listen for this week
Climate Week organizers framed this year around "the energy, the impact, and the action." Every commitment made on a stage this week will be delivered by someone in the field. So as the announcements roll out, a few questions are worth asking:
- Who builds it? Which contractors, which trades, and how many workers on site at peak construction.
- Who runs it? How many permanent operating jobs follow once the ribbon is cut.
- Who trains them? Which apprenticeship programs, community colleges and trade schools are in the plan.
Those answers tell you whether a project will put people to work in a real place. They are the answers Positive Current will keep reporting.
The bottom line
New York will fill up this week with people talking about the future of energy. The future is already on the payroll. 8.4 million Americans go to work in energy every day, the grid is adding crews, apprenticeships are climbing, and the median paycheck beats the national one by 24 percent.
That is the story. Jobs, jobs, jobs.
Sources
U.S. Department of Energy, 2026 U.S. Energy and Employment Report (September 2026)
U.S. Department of Energy, USEER release
Climate Group, Climate Week NYC 2026, September 20 to 27
E2, Clean Jobs America (December 2025)
