The cost of “Green Jobs”

Jo Nova blogs on the costs of Green jobs. Parties around the world love to talk about creating Green jobs, because who can be against jobs and against being good for the environment? A win-win right?

The trouble is that their Green jobs are almost always reliant on huge subsidies that actually destroy jobs.

She gives five examples:

• Each green job in Britain costs £100,000 (and 3.7 other jobs)
  
• In Spain each Green job cost $770,000 and nine jobs were lost for every four created
• In Italy each Green job costs 5 jobs from the rest of the economy
• In Germany the subsidy per Green job is 175,000 Euros
• Green jobs in Denmark are estimated to have reduced Danish GDP by $270 million

We already have tens of thousands of “Green jobs” in New Zealand. They are the ones that get created when an employer is doing well enough to hire more people in the area they work in (such as tourism). The Green jobs that you hear certain political parties promote are the ones that require huge subsidies and destroy jobs elsewhere in the economy.