In 2024, the clean energy sector saw a job boom: The industry added nearly 100,000 new jobs throughout that year, meaning clean energy jobs grew more than three times faster than the rest of the workforce.
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Last year was a different story, however.
It was a year of losses for the clean energy industry, in terms of projects, investments, and employment.
Existing factories closed, like Natron Energy’s sodium-ion battery facilities in Michigan and California. Planned facilities were canceled, including a $3.2 billion Stellantis battery factory in Illinois. And multiple kinds of projects were scrapped, blocked, or downsized, from EV plants to wind farms.
In total, the turbulent year meant that 38,000 jobs—a mix of current and future positions—were erased from the clean energy industry, according to a new analysis by E2, a nonpartisan organization that tracks U.S. clean energy projects.
A net loss of clean energy jobs
The vast majority of those 38,000 lost jobs were in manufacturing (though some may have been counted in multiple categories, like energy generation or maintenance). For comparison, by the end of 2024, there were about 577,000 manufacturing jobs in the clean energy industry.
These job losses are especially significant because they’re happening amid a general decline in manufacturing employment. In 2024, clean energy manufacturing had been a “bright spot,” says Michael Timberlake, E2 director of research and publications, helping bring back U.S. production.
“When those projects are canceled, we’re not just losing jobs on paper; we’re losing a pathway that had been driving a new manufacturing resurgence,” he says. “And the investment doesn’t disappear. It moves to other countries and U.S. competitors that are aggressively building clean energy supply chains and hiring the workers we can’t afford to lose.”
Even amid cancellations, some new clean energy projects and jobs were announced in 2025, like a $42 million Anthro Energy battery factory in Louisville, Kentucky, which will create 110 jobs.
But the number of jobs eliminated outweighs those potential additions. Just 22,905 jobs were announced in 2025, meaning a net loss of more than 15,000 expected clean energy positions.