Germany’s Solar PV Industry Now Employs More than US Steel Industry (Over 100,000)

Solar photovoltaic panels on home in Germany, one of many now featuring solar PV panels.

There’s a nice little statistic for you.

Germany Trade & Invest (GT&I) recently reported that its latest figures show Germany’s solar photovoltaic (PV) industry employs over 100,000 ‘green’ workers now, more than the US steel industry.

Update: A thoughtful reader pointed out to me that “the US has about 312 million people while Germany has 82 million, about 25% as many people…. That makes the German solar industry more than four times as large an employer than US steel based on country size.”

Here’s a little more from PV-Tech:

The main requirement for ‘Made in Germany’ components is driven by the country’s domestic solar market, which installed a total of 7.4GWp in 2010. Yet Germany is also a manufacturing platform for other European PV markets, including Italy, where the feed-in tariff adjustments stipulate that installed technology must be ‘Made in Europe’. At present, approximately 75% of European solar cells, modules and other BOS are currently made in Germany.