Johnson Controls To Add 17,000 Green Building Jobs
Unemployment rates are obscene these days, but not in the green building industry. In fact, Johnson Controls will add 17,000 green building jobs in the next two years.Green building has move far beyond being just a positive trend in design. It has now become a marketing tool for companies. If you are building a new structure, you better build it green so you can tout it in your corporate profile. At least, this appears to be the approach with banks, multinational corporations and pretty much any large business entity.
The positive side of this is it is creating a lot of jobs in the green building industry. Just consider the news out of Johnson Controls. It will add a whopping 17,000 green building jobs in the next two years. 1,000 will be in the for of green building engineers. Another 1,000 will be for employees that are LEED certified by the U.S. Green Building Council. Another 15,000 will be for technicians who will be in the field working on projects.
Johnson Controls provides engineering solutions for companies around the world. It’s turn towards energy efficiency has been amazing. Just consider this. The company has 130,000 employees, which means its new hiring initiative will expand its workforce by more than 10 percent with green jobs. In a time when unemployment levels are high and job growth overall is miserable, that is pretty amazing.
Can the green building industry help turn around the putrid job market in the construction industry? It is not large enough to make a major impact yet, but it certainly seems to be a trend that could make a huge difference as we move forward. More and more new structures will be going green, but the real benefit as it relates to jobs could be found in the upgrading of older structures as we are starting to see in New York City. Regardless, any positive signs in the job market should be viewed as a move in the right direction and the hiring announcement by Johnson Controls certainly qualifies.
<< Green Building News