SEIA Becomes One Of The First National Trade Associations To Feature Spanish-Language Website Section
The Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) recently became one of the first national trade associations in the country to create and feature a Spanish-language section on its website.
The gateway to the Español section of the SEIA website is found in a prominent location just under the SEIA logo on the website’s home page. The section seeks to provide a general overview of the solar energy industry, amongst other things — offering a “Solar Energy 101 tutorial,” various facts concerning the solar energy industry’s “diversity efforts,” and information on the growth of the industry over recent years, etc.
Considering the rapid growth in the use of the Spanish language in the US in recent decades, the move makes a fair amount of sense — and seems to represent the general tide of things, to my eyes. As per the Pew Research Center, Spanish is currently spoken by around 40 million people (5 years of age and older) in the US.
Considering that Spanish-speaking populations in the US have a much higher rate of “fertility” than most other demographics, this number will of course continue to rise in the coming years.
“Today, the US solar energy industry is doing a good job when it comes to employing a diverse workforce. But in the future, we want to do a great job,” stated SEIA President and CEO Rhone Resch. “Many of our companies and groups, like GRID Alternatives, are ramping up their training and recruitment opportunities to increase attention to the importance of gender and ethnic diversity in the solar workplace. We believe SEIA’s new Spanish-language section will help us to accomplish our goals.”
As noted by The Solar Foundation’s 2014 Jobs Census, workers in the solar industry are of fairly diverse demographic backgrounds, as compared to many other industries.
“Demographic groups such as Latino/Hispanic, Asian/Pacific Islander, and African American, along with women and veterans of the US Armed Forces now represent a larger percentage of the solar workforce than was observed in 2013. These higher percentages, coupled with overall growth in solar employment, means workers from these groups are growing in number as well as percentage of the workforce,” as the report put it.
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