Backed by Walton Family grant, Los Angeles-based WorkingNation examines Arkansas’ growing ‘green job’ economy
April 4-10, 2022
By The Daily Record Staff
WorkingNation, a nonprofit news organization reporting on the future of work, recently released “Green Jobs Now: Arkansas” – multimedia reports and original data showing how green jobs affect Arkansas’ economy and how upskilling the workforce in green ways could drive economic growth.
Arkansas’ green economy includes 6,558 workers and the number is growing, according to Emsi Burning Glass, the firm that collected and analyzed original data for the project. In fact, a projected increase in employment demand of 9% over the next five years should easily outpace the projected national average of 5.7%, the report states.
“For Arkansas, the future for us is bright … [and] gets even brighter with the green jobs because there are going to be more and more coming,” Arkansas Secretary of Commerce Mike Preston told WorkingNation. “We’ve got a strong legacy in agriculture and steel and timber, and really across the board. In the future, green jobs are going to be crosscutting over all those sectors, so we’re going to benefit from that.”
The “Green Jobs Now: Arkansas” series, funded by a Walton Family Foundation grant, identifies the state’s most in-demand green skills overall and for selected occupations, and suggests certain workers could get annual salary boosts of perhaps $1,700 or more by applying green skills, with boosts upwards of $4,000 for some positions. That demonstrates the value to workers of learning green skills and to local employment economies of ensuring training is available. In Arkansas, Emsi Burning Glass estimates 444,972 workers could be reskilled into green jobs if they gained access to training.
“Green Jobs Now: Arkansas” is the latest state-focused installment of the WorkingNation/Emsi Burning Glass “Green Jobs Now” series, a data-driven journalism project to define and identify green jobs and skills, pinpoint where workers can find them, and present a vivid snapshot of the green economy. The Los Angeles-based nonprofit journalism group illuminates the Arkansas green jobs project through articles, video and podcast journalism on the big picture as well as with state-by-state, sector-by-sector analysis.
The ongoing Arkansas green jobs project is supported by a grant from the Bentonville-based philanthropic arm of the descendants of Walmart Founders Sam and Helen Walton. WorkStation first announced in June 2020 that it received a grant from the Bentonville foundation with offices in Washington, D.C.; Denver, and Jersey City, N.J., to support the ongoing study of “green jobs” — where they are, what job seekers can do to get them and how to expand the economic opportunities they offer.
“Environmental jobs are a significantly larger economic driver than a lot of people realize,” said WorkingNation founder and CEO Art Bilger. “That is partly because ‘green jobs’ have often been narrowly defined. Our reporting will point out the broad scope of the green economy and offer intelligence to help governments, employers and job seekers power their post-COVID recoveries. We thank the Walton Family Foundation for helping us paint this picture so local green economies can reach their full potential.”
“The future is about finding solutions for nature and people to thrive together. That means we need to be smart about good jobs that are sustainable both environmentally and economically,” added Moira Mcdonald, director of environment programs at the Walton Family Foundation. “Insights from WorkingNation’s research should help boost the economy in the Mississippi River basin by shining a valuable spotlight on in-demand green jobs.”
According to the summary of the WorkingNation’s report, nearly 9 million current jobs are generated by the U.S. green economy, accounting for 6% of all U.S. jobs and those numbers will grow to 24 million jobs and 14% by 2030, according to an analysis by Management Information Services Inc. (MISI), one of two research firms partnered with WorkingNation to produce original data for the project.
For its part, Emsi Burning Glass, generated localized data for the states covered in the project’s initial phase — Pennsylvania, Louisiana, Colorado, Connecticut, Arkansas, Illinois, Mississippi, Iowa and Indiana. In the 14-page summary of the Arkansas jobs report, WorkingNation admits that defining a green job is not an easy task. Core jobs are those “with a primary responsibility associated with the green economy,” the report states, indicating that the top core green job in Arkansas is a solar sales representative.
The report also states there was an uptick in demand last year for 1,374 new green workers in the state with the current green workforce estimated at more than 6,558 with an average annual salary of $61,466. The WorkNation report further predicts there are 444,972 workers in Arkansas, or nearly a third of the entire Arkansas workforce, which could be reskilled for green jobs – suggesting a vast and diverse pool of easy talent that could be retooled for work in the emerging sector.
“We see surprising industries such as professional, scientific and technical services coming up as having demand for green workers. The workers in this industry include software developers, business management analysts and others. This is yet further evidence of the breadth of today’s green economy,” the report states.
The WorkStation report also highlights that the planned $1.2 trillion federal Bipartisan Infrastructure and Jobs Act (BIJA) signed into law by President Joe Biden in November will help drive green jobs nationally and in Arkansas. In late 2021, the White House released a fact sheet detailing that Arkansas would expect to receive nearly $3.6 billion for federal-aid highway apportioned programs and $278 million for bridge replacement and repairs under the omnibus infrastructure legislation over the next five years.
In addition, Arkansas can also compete for the $12.5 billion Bridge Investment Program for economically significant bridges and nearly $16 billion of national funding in the bill dedicated for major projects that will deliver substantial economic benefits to communities, including several tied to electric vehicle networks, climate change, clean drinking water and high-speed internet in rural areas.
Those focus areas of the new BIJA legislation are all key tenets of the Northwest Arkansas foundation now led by the descendants of Walmart founders Sam and Helen Walton. In 2020, the foundation awarded $749.5 million in grants to further its mission of supporting K-12 education, protecting rivers and oceans, and investing in the foundation’s home region of Northwest Arkansas and the Arkansas-Mississippi Delta.
Some of the key highlights of the Arkansas reporting by WorkStation includes:
• a feature article by Laura Aka on how Arkansas’ agricultural sector — particularly rice farming, where Arkansas produces nearly half of the U.S. crop — is implementing sustainable methods and creating green jobs in science and research.
• an episode of the “Work Green, Earn Green” audio podcast in which host Jay Tipton takes a closer look at the environmental implications of rice.
• an “I Want That Job!” video offering an inside look at plastics recycling.
• an Emsi Burning Glass report detailing green jobs data and trends in Arkansas here: https://workingnation.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Green_Jobs_Now_Arkansas.pdf
To learn more about the WorkStation project, go here: https://workingnation.com/green-isgoing-to-impact-just-about-all-arkansas-jobs-in-the-future/
