The market is hot for solar workers.
The Solar Foundation this week released the National Solar Jobs Census, which shows that the number of U.S. solar workers as of November 2014 rose 21.8 percent year over year, to 173,807 workers. It was the second year in a row with growth of more than 20 percent.
A local example of the surge in hiring: SolarCity nearly doubled its workforce by hiring 4,000 workers last year, according to Fortune. The San Mateo-based company s CEO, Lyndon Rive, told the magazine that there s more hiring to come, but did not give a number.
The Solar Foundation report also said that the number of solar jobs is expected to grow another 20.9 percent this year, to 210,060 solar workers, based on a survey of employers. In the past five years — the foundation first published the census in 2010 — employment in the solar industry has grown 86 percent, adding about 81,000 jobs.
Of the solar jobs created in 2014, the report said more than half were in installation (55.8 percent). That s followed by manufacturing (18.7 percent), sales and distribution (11.6 percent), project developers (8.7 percent) and other (5.2 percent).
As for the demographics of the solar workforce in 2014: 21.6 percent were women, compared with 18.7 percent in 2013; 16.3 percent were Latino/Hispanic, up from 15.6 percent in 2013; 7 percent were Asian or Pacific Islanders, up from 6.7 percent the year before; and 6 percent were black, up from 5.9 percent in 2013.
Photo: SolarCity workers install a solar panel on the roof of a residential building in San Francisco in 2009. (D. Ross Cameron/Bay Area News Group)
