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Employment in the Wind Industry

30,000 Jobs Worldwide in 1995
The wind industry in 1995 employed some 30,000 people worldwide. This estimate is based on a study from the Danish Wind Turbine Manufacturers Association, which was published in 1995.
The study accounts for both direct and indirect employment. By indirect employment we mean the people who are employed manufacturing components for wind turbines, and the people who are involved in installing wind turbines worldwide.

9,000 Jobs in Denmark
The Danish wind industry had some 8 500 people employed in 1995. It may be interesting to see how they are divided between different components:

Component Employment
Turbine assembly 3 600
Rotor blades 2 000
Electronic controllers 700
Brakes, hydraulics etc. 200
Towers 1 500
Installation of turbines 300
Other 300
Total 8 300

In reality wind turbine production creates about 50 per cent more jobs, since Danish manufacturers import many components, e.g. gearboxes, generators, hubs etc. from abroad. In addition, jobs are created through the installation of wind turbines in other countries.

How was the Study done?
You may think we went out and asked the wind turbine manufacturers to get the figures. Well, we did, but only to check our calculations. The point is, that you are likely to end up with the wrong answer, if you rely on asking people about something as complex as job creation throughout the economy. You may see remarkably large errors in other estimates made as naive back-of-an-envelope calculations elsewhere on the Web. (Out of courtesy, we won't include the link, here).
Actually, we started very differently using a so called input-output model, which is what most economists in government service, or central statistical bureaus would do. In an input output model we actually follow the flow of deliveries from each sector of the economy to other sectors of the economy. In our case, we have a 117 by 177 table of deliveries between the sectors, and the statisticians have double checked that they sum up to the total production in the economy. With this table on may follow sub-sub-contracting all the way back in the economy in an infinite number of links. (Using a mathematical technique called matrix inversion):

How to get Hold of the Study
You may download the employment study (44K) in Adobe Acrobat pdf-format for printing in the original layout on your own printer. To download to a PC: Click the Download button using the right mouse button. To download to a Macintosh, hold the mouse button down, and select Save this Link as...
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© Copyright 1998 Soren Krohn. All rights reserved.
Updated 26 September 2000
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