Green Collar Jobs to Close the Inequality Gap

Although many people are feeling the economic crunch, people of color and high school graduates are the least advantaged groups in the current labor market. As more overqualified workers are taking lower-paying jobs, people of color and high school graduates are pushed even further to the economic margins.

Many researchers and organizations are hoping that the emerging green economy, and the green collar jobs that accompany it, will help bridge this economic divide.

Green collar jobs are essentially blue collar employment opportunities created by environmentally-friendly organizations. The level of education required for these jobs, which range from large scale green waste composting to solar panel and wind turbine installation, is a high school diploma, and emerging green organizations do not require much experience.

The problem, however, is connecting people to jobs that they might not think they have the skills to perform. Enter the Oakland Green Job Corps (OGJC), a non-profit organization that is helping many previously excluded economic groups make the jump into the emerging green economy.

Championed by the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights and informed by the Pinderhughes Model, a breakthrough research study by Urban Studies Professor Raquel Pinderhughes, each OGJC program trains forty young adults in a four-part cycle that provides them with education, green-collar skills, and on-the-job training with green employers. Graduates of the program are placed in full-time jobs with such companies as solar firms and green construction contractors, with jobs that pay well above the state minimum wage.

Pinderhughes notes that it is still difficult to determine whether or not the emerging green economy will be beneficial to certain marginalized groups, but by getting a foot in the door early on is very promising. For more information on green collar jobs and resources, go to http://www.greenforall.org/resources/resources.

Sources:

http://www.urbanhabitat.org/node/528
http://ellabakercenter.org/page.php?pageid=32