Australia: opportunities for employment in a high renewable scenario
Authors
Koki Baba, Thomas Houlie, James Bowen
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Transitioning Australia's power sector away from fossil fuels to renewable energy to align with a 1.5˚C emissions pathway would would substantially expand power sector employment.
In our fossil-free Australia report, we established the fossil fuel phase-out (FFPO) scenario, a new Paris-aligned pathway for Australia, which we compared against a current policy projections scenario that reflects the measures the government has put in place.
In this companion report, we drill down into the employment implications of our FFPO scenario for the electricity sector. We find that a transition away from fossil fuels will generate major employment opportunities across the country.
In this Paris-aligned pathway, by 2050, the power sector employs more than ten times as many full-time equivalent (FTE) workers as legacy, carbon-intensive fossil fuel power generation does today.
Annual labour demand in the national power sector doubles, from 37,000 FTE jobs in 2025 to 76,000 in 2035 and 87,000 by 2050, after a peak at nearly 90,000 in 2030.
Critical to this transition is the need to ensure a just and fair transition of the workforce. Due to the decentralised nature of renewable energy, the new jobs created will not necessarily be in the same location where fossil fuel jobs are lost.
The FFPO scenario sees a transition of the entire national electricity system, instead of only the main grids covered by the 82% renewable target. The new jobs will be spread around Australia, providing opportunities in regional areas and mining and industrial clusters that are currently lagging behind in the transition.
Realising these opportunities will require active workforce planning. In the initial phase of the transition, renewable capacity will need to be deployed rapidly to replace existing fossil fuel generation, creating a sharp increase in demand for construction and installation workers, including in regions away from major population centres.











