As shared in the first installment of our four-part series highlighting findings from that report, Alaska experienced comparatively high clean energy job growth rates from 2022 to 2024, despite starting from a relatively low share of clean energy workers within its larger energy workforce. Within that growth, however, energy employers and partners shared persistent difficulties hiring and retaining staff, especially for the 15 in-demand positions laid out in that post.
Informed by more than 40 informational interviews, 10 Alaska Energy Training Group meetings, and a robust data and literature review, the Opportunity Analysis describes five overarching clean energy workforce challenges that are blocking progress for projects across the state (Chapter 2, p. 20).
As the second entry in our four-part series, this blog post shares top-level information about these shared roadblocks. Future editions will discuss promising strategies to combat these challenges and future research and workforce development priorities to continue pushing for clean energy workforce growth in the state.
The Core Five
Energy workers, employers, and trainers described many reasons for why it’s hard to recruit, retain, and train clean energy workers in Alaska. Their input highlighted five core shared issues that constrain the state’s clean energy labor market. Some of the identified obstacles are felt across sectors, with exacerbating factors or considerations specific to the clean energy workforce. And most of the challenges are closely tied together, as with many workforce and economic development issues.
1. In much of rural Alaska, clean energy positions are difficult to fill and retain.
Nineteen interviewees discussed this challenge (p. 20). The reasons mentioned for rural clean energy staff vacancy or turnover ranged widely, and included:
- a lack of experienced applicants
- staff having difficulty learning new technology
- mismanagement
- competition with better paying positions
- inflexible work schedules
- housing issues
- inadequate on-boarding training and support
- work burnout
- personal or family issues
- staff moving elsewhere
- retirements
- inadequate work attendance or performance.
Being a power plant operator can be a thankless job.
The positions mentioned as most difficult to hire and retain in rural remote villages were bookkeeper and part-time power plant operator positions that require on-call work. In rural hub communities, the most difficult positions mentioned were any traveling technician roles, including line workers and diesel mechanics.
2. Maintaining and repairing rural infrastructure, including clean energy systems, is expensive and hard to fund in remote areas.
In 12 interviews, sources described the need for greater collaboration, funding, and personnel to plan and perform preventive maintenance, emergency repairs, and upgrades of rural energy infrastructure (p. 22).
Interviewees identified two main factors exacerbating the difficulty of maintaining and repairing rural clean energy infrastructure: the growth in long-term operation & maintenance expenses that comes with technological advancements and the difficulty rural organizations face in establishing and growing their savings with small ratepayer bases and the limitations of grant-funded infrastructure. The highest-demand positions were diesel mechanics or technicians, bookkeepers, electricians, line workers, and electrical engineers.
You’re reliant on outside vendors. That’s outside help you need to pay to make sure everything is maintained.
3. Even on the road system, it’s hard to keep experienced clean energy workers beyond entry-level roles, which impacts statewide workforce availability.
Fifteen interviewees discussed this workforce challenge (p. 23). They identified some cross-industry factors influencing the statewide expertise shortage, including:
- long state occupational licensing timelines and limited licensing reciprocity with other states for key construction trades
- the higher cost of living in Alaska due to housing, food, and energy costs
- relatively low wages and benefits for in-demand state and local government positions.
They also mentioned two factors unique to the clean energy workforce: the smaller scale of clean energy projects in the state and a history of unpredictable government support. The positions highlighted were experienced project managers, engineers, line workers, analysts, management-level roles, and HVAC contractors. Energy auditors, especially traveling or regionally specific energy auditors, were mentioned as a potential future shortage.
How are we going to keep our workforce steady? Uncertainty is a bad thing at all levels … Shut [an industry] down for two years, and everybody leaves.
4. Accessing clean energy training is challenging across the state, especially in rural areas.
Having training in town on the equipment they’re using is most useful.
Twenty-one interviewees identified this as a key challenge (p. 25). Notable reasons include:
- a lack of available comprehensive care and support services like childcare, travel scholarships, and training stipends
- distant or inaccessible training locations
- inadequate training formats
- burdensome eligibility requirements
- the high cost of maintaining training facilities in rural and remote areas
- dearth and distance of instructors availability and location
- unclear career progression opportunities.
The factors emphasized as especially critical were remote training locations and a lack of wraparound or supportive services, like transportation assistance and childcare support.
5. Clean energy training programs struggle to hire and retain experienced instructors.
Twelve interviewees described extreme difficulty finding and retaining experienced educators and instructors for energy-related career and technical education (CTE) courses and programs (p. 28). The factors most often cited as contributing to the clean energy instructor shortage were the difficulty of competing with industry opportunities and the aging educator population.
There haven’t been CTE folks developed in probably a quarter of a century. It’s hard to find the technical expertise to lead that. Folks with technical backgrounds can make a better income in industry.
These barriers are most acute and detrimental to workforce development in Alaska’s rural hub and remote areas, but sources shared stories of urban and statewide impacts as well. Workforce shortages and challenges experienced in more urban areas, like in Interior, Southcentral, and Southeast Alaska, often have direct effects on workforce availability in hub communities and remote villages. But each community and region also has its own unique workforce challenges and contributing factors, tied to its distinctive history, economy, and culture, that aren’t covered by this analysis’s statewide scope.
Turning Challenges into Opportunities
Identifying challenges and tracing them back to their root causes is important, but only as a step toward finding lasting solutions. Alaska’s communities are full of problem-solvers, and so alongside these gaps, interviewees also shared promising ways to creatively and collaboratively overcome these constraints to support Alaska’s clean energy workers.
Stay tuned for the third installment in this series, where we will dive into those strategies and some of the efforts already underway across the state.
Download the full report now by completing the form at the top of this post.