Conference Agenda

The green sector is often viewed as a source of new jobs for frontline fossil fuel (FFF) workers, yet concerns persist about uncompetitive salaries. This view focuses narrowly on immediate horizontal transitions into similar green jobs, overlooking the sector’s potential to enable long-term career mobility. As an emerging industry, the green sector may offer greater opportunities for advancement into management and engineering roles than mature fossil fuel sectors. Wage comparisons, therefore, should account for differences in upward mobility. Using data on 190,648 FFF workers in the U.S., we analyze career trajectories after leaving their first fossil fuel job. Over their career, FFF workers who, at any point, transition into the green sector (green switchers) earn 4% more than those who remain in fossil fuel jobs. This is partly driven by higher upward mobility in the green sector. Green switchers are twice as likely to hold managerial jobs and 2.5 times as likely to hold science and engineering (SE) jobs compared to peers who remain in the fossil fuel sector. Within these occupational categories, green sector workers earn 10% and 30% more, respectively, than their fossil fuel counterparts. To secure these roles, workers adopt distinct reskilling strategies: skill diversification raises the odds of managerial advancement, while skill deepening into engineering-relevant skills increases the likelihood of entering SE occupations. These findings inform reskilling policies that promote both upward mobility and horizontal flexibility for FFF workers.