Technology and Science24 August, 20263 min read
America’s Energy Sector Needs 500,000 More Workers By 2030 As AI Expands Power Demand
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US power and grid value chain needs about 500,000 additional workers by 2030. AI-driven demand boosts energy infrastructure growth, but worker shortages hinder expansion.
Energy labor bottleneck
America’s energy sector is facing a shortage of workers as AI expands demand for electricity and infrastructure, with Goldman Sachs projecting that the U.S. power and grid value chain could need around 500,000 additional workers by 2030.
Fortune reports that the energy apprenticeship pipeline had only 45,000 entrants in 2024 compared with the roughly 65,000 needed each year, and that many roles require three to four years of training.
The same Goldman Sachs report says, “Power is a critical bottleneck—but increasingly, the requisite labor presents a structural constraint of its own,” and it adds that training cannot happen at the pace capital is being committed.
Fortune also ties the labor gap to physical AI, noting that Goldman Sachs projects the humanoid robot market could grow from about 20,000 units in 2025 to 1.4 million by 2035.
In parallel, the U.S. Department of Energy figures cited by Fortune say America’s energy sector employed roughly 8.5 million workers as of 2024, with a median wage of $58,810 a year.
Robots and uneven hiring
As AI reshapes hiring, Business Insider reports that as of the first quarter of this year, nearly 70% of US software development job postings on Indeed were for senior-level roles, up from 55% in early 2019.
The same Indeed analysis found that software development postings had the highest share of senior-level postings among more than 40 employment sectors it analyzed, and it says the rebound is spread unevenly across experience levels.
Saying AI is changing what companies need, Indeed Hiring Lab economist Sneha Puri told Business Insider that “AI tools can increasingly handle the routine, well-defined coding tasks that used to be assigned to junior engineers.”
Ars Technica, citing Stanford University economists, reports that employment levels for workers aged 22 to 25 in the most “AI-exposed” occupations are now 19 percent below those of their peers in fields less exposed to AI disruption.
Ars Technica adds that the August 2026 edition of “Canaries in the Coal Mine? Six Facts about the Recent Employment Effects of Artificial Intelligence” updates and revises a paper of the same name published last year with fresh data and refined statistics.
Hong Kong’s training gap
In Hong Kong, Financial Secretary Paul Chan Mo-po used an August 23 blog post to warn that artificial intelligence will displace workers, while the program he cited targets 50,000 people in a workforce of 3.67 million. Tech Times says Chan’s “AI for All” response is framed as a “technological paradigm shift,” and it reports that the government will support small and medium enterprises in preparing for what he called a “technological paradigm shift.” The article also describes a budget-announced “AI for All” program rolled out in February that will feature more than 200 activities and is designed to benefit 50,000 people within two years.
Tech Times reports that KPMG China’s 2026 hiring survey, published March 31 after surveying close to 300 business executives, found that only 19% of organizations forecast headcount growth this year. Against that backdrop, the World Bank’s World Development Report 2026 released August 4 found that 14.2% of jobs in high-income economies face potential automation risk from generative AI, and Tech Times says that figure would imply roughly 521,000 of Hong Kong’s 3.67 million workers face meaningful automation exposure.