The global energy transition is driving one of the fastest employment expansions in the world economy,according to new analysis from the IEA.

Energy sector employment climbed to around 76 million jobs in 2024,growing at more than twice the pace of the wider economy.

The surge is being powered by electrification,clean energy deployment and massive investment in grids,storage and manufacturing.

Electricity has overtaken fuel supply as the main engine of energy job creation for the first time.

Nearly three quarters of all new energy jobs added since 2019 have been in power generation,networks,batteries and storage.

Solar alone accounts for roughly half of the net growth in global energy employment over that period.

The workforce is expanding far beyond traditional power plants into rooftops,factories,data centres and vehicle supply chains.

Jobs are rising fast in solar installation,grid construction,EV manufacturing,battery production and heat pump deployment.

In China,close to 40%of all vehicle manufacturing jobs are now linked to electric vehicles and batteries.

The shift is also rippling across heavy industry,with clean power and electrification reshaping steel,chemicals and cement.

Emerging economies are capturing the biggest gains as clean energy supply chains scale at speed.

India,Indonesia and the Middle East are seeing some of the fastest energy job growth globally.

Advanced economies are still adding workers but at a far slower rate.

The IEA says skills shortages are now one of the biggest risks to maintaining momentum.

Electricians,engineers and technicians are already in short supply across multiple markets.Without rapid training and reskilling,labour constraints could slow grid buildout and clean energy deployment.

Under current policies,energy employment is set to keep rising into the 2030s.

Millions more jobs are expected as investment flows into power networks,renewables and electrified transport.

The report says the energy transition is no longer a future promise but a present labour market reality.It is creating work at scale while reordering where jobs sit across regions and industries.

The economic upside is now as clear as the climate case.The IEA says the transition is becoming a defining source of global employment growth.

But there is a warning–that should governments fail to fix training pipelines–the workforce will become the next bottleneck in the clean energy race.