Solar energy is a quickly growing job-creating industry. New solar panels are going up every day across the nation generating affordable reliable electricity for homes and businesses. They’re also powering the economy creating hundreds of thousands of jobs. The solar Foundation’s annual job census looks at the number of solar jobs nationwide and by state. As of 2016 more than 260,000 Americans are working full-time in the solar industry. That’s more than the number of people who work at Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google combined.

The solar workforce is growing fast. Over 50,000 new solar jobs were added and in 2016 alone a twenty-five percent increase from the previous year and nearly tripled the number of solar jobs since we first started tracking them in 2010. These are good jobs that pay better than the national average.