Training for Green Jobs Is the Easy Part
By Sudeep Reddy
JOLIET, Ill.—This former "City of Steel" wants to reinvent itself as a hub for green jobs. It's got a long way to go.
At Joliet Junior College, $190,000 in shrink-wrapped wind-turbine equipment recently arrived to teach students the mechanics of servicing the devices—but there are still relatively few jobs for those who get trained. Down the street at Atlantic Plant Services Co., which helps manufacturers save money by insulating pipes and other equipment, managers think they could create hundreds of new jobs, but only if the government offers tax breaks for insulation installed by businesses as it does now for homeowners.
Joliet is discovering what cities across the U.S. have found: Declaring that a city is going to replace yesterday's lost jobs with new green ones is a lot easier than actually doing so....
U.S. companies are starting to create new jobs—from factories making batteries for electric cars to solar-panel manufacturers ramping up output—but so far they haven't produced a big green job machine.
AnnaLee Saxenian, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, [and dean of the School of Information] who studies regional technology clusters, says the nationwide push could produce plenty of service jobs and some manufacturing jobs, but it's unlikely to replace the millions lost in autos and steel and semiconductors to overseas producers. "People are jumping on a bandwagon," she says. "Washington needs something to sell. It can't be a panacea for everyone."...