skip to main content
skip to newscasts

Monday, March 18, 2024

Public News Service Logo
facebook instagram linkedin reddit youtube twitter
view newscast page
play newscast audioPlay

Report says a second Trump term would add 4 billion tons of climate pollution; Trump predicts a bloodbath for the country if he is defeated in November's election; Nevada leaders discuss future of IVF, abortion in the Silver State; and anglers seek trawler buffer zone as Atlantic herring stock declines.

view newscast page
play newscast audioPlay

The SCOTUS weighs government influence on social media, and who groups like the NRA can do business with. Biden signs an executive order to advance women's health research and the White House tells Israel it's responsible for the Gaza humanitarian crisis.

view newscast page
play newscast audioPlay

Midwest regenerative farmers are rethinking chicken production, Medicare Advantage is squeezing the finances of rural hospitals and California's extreme swing from floods to drought has some thinking it's time to turn rural farm parcels into floodplains.

Threat of Tariffs Impacted Solar Jobs in 2017

play audio
Play

Tuesday, February 13, 2018   

DENVER – Nearly 10,000 jobs nationwide were lost in the solar industry in 2017, according to a new report released by The Solar Foundation.

But the group's eighth annual national jobs census also found that in states where solar is still ramping up, new jobs are on the rise.

Solar Foundation Senior Director Ed Gilliland says the long-term trend continues to show significant jobs growth.

"Solar employs over twice as many people as employed in the coal industry, five times as many as employed in nuclear energy, and almost as many that are employed in natural gas," he explains.

The solar workforce has grown by 168 percent in the past seven years, from some 93,000 jobs in 2010 to more than 250,000 jobs in 2017. Gilliland says worries about the outcome of a trade case played a significant role in the loss of jobs.

Last year, the U.S. International Trade Commission ruled that cheaper solar panels from China were hurting U.S. manufacturers. In January, the Trump administration levied a levied a 30-percent tariff on those imports.

Gilliland says other state-level policies, such as reducing how much home-solar providers are compensated for delivering electricity to local grids, are also slowing growth.

He adds that the majority of solar manufacturers in the U.S. are not set up to produce cells and panels, and many are concerned the new tariffs will decrease demand overall, which could lead to even greater job loss.

"We have about 36,000 manufacturing jobs in the U.S. that work on solar," he notes. "That's a 48-percent increase since 2010. And most of those manufacturers do not manufacture cells or panels."

According to a U.S. Trade Representative fact sheet, state investment helped increase China's share of worldwide solar cell and panel production from seven percent in 2005 to 61 percent in 2012. The Trump administration's tariffs will decline over a four-year period.


get more stories like this via email

more stories
Corporate partners sign contracts to offer a graduate assistantship and pay the students. In turn, MSU pays the graduate assistant's tuition, fees and salary, so the assistantship is directly tied to the academic experience. (pressmaster/Adobe Stock)

play sound

By Victoria Lim for WorkingNation.Broadcast version by Farah Siddiqi for Missouri News Service reporting for the WorkingNation-Public News Service Col…


Social Issues

play sound

A new report brands Connecticut's tax system as "regressive" for low- to middle-income residents and uses a report from the state to make its point…

Environment

play sound

Backers of a new federal rule said it will increase fairness for livestock and poultry producers, in North Carolina and across the country. The U.S…


A study by the advocacy group Inseparable showed one in five adults said at any given time, they consider their mental health to be either 'fair' or 'poor.' (Adobe Stock)

Health and Wellness

play sound

Mental health care advocates are encouraging federal agencies to adopt a proposed update to regulations which would expand access to psychological car…

Social Issues

play sound

With hotter summers bringing hotter working conditions, the Maryland Department of Labor is implementing a heat stress standard to protect workers …

Social Issues

play sound

By Jimmy Cloutier for OpenSecrets.Broadcast version by Roz Brown for Texas News Service reporting for the OpenSecrets-Public News Service Collaboratio…

Environment

play sound

Recreational fishermen in New England say commercial trawlers are threatening the survival of smaller businesses relying on a healthy stock of Atlanti…

 

Phone: 303.448.9105 Toll Free: 888.891.9416 Fax: 208.247.1830 Your trusted member- and audience-supported news source since 1996 Copyright © 2021