How Many Coal-Dependent Jobs Are There and How Important Are They?

Deck: 

Undercounting Explained

Fortnightly Magazine - June 1 2020
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The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics and the U.S. Energy Information Administration estimate that the number of jobs in the U.S. coal industry currently totals about 53,000. This paper utilizes a combination of existing data from various government and industry sources and original research to derive a more accurate estimate of the current coal-dependent employment in the U.S. — taking into account the coal industry's entire profile from mine development and construction, through operations, maintenance, product transportation, and end use.

We estimate that the number of coal-dependent jobs is much larger than generally realized — as much as eight times larger, and totals approximately 420,000. We note that many of these jobs are concentrated in specific local areas where they comprise some of the highest paying jobs available and are critically important to these areas. Thus, the U.S. coal industry remains a major driver of the nation's economy and employment. 

We discuss the industry job classification issues and the socio-economic factors that have fundamentally shifted much employment in the industry away from production to support services and away from direct employment to contractor, outsourced, and support roles. 

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