Fossil fuel occupations show high transferability across the wider economy

The global decarbonization transition puts approximately 13 million fossil fuel jobs at risk under the International Energy Agency’s Net Zero Emissions scenario. Existing research has predominantly focused on transition pathways for routine manual workers moving into green sectors, leaving economy-wide transition prospects across all fossil fuel occupation types poorly understood. Here we show, using employment and skills data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics and Department of Labor, that 77.4% of fossil fuel occupations exhibit high transferability to non-fossil fuel roles, with an additional 11.3% achieving comparable transferability after reskilling. Accounting for realistic inter-industry labor mobility, the top destination industries are Accommodation and Food Services ; Administrative , Waste Management and Remediation Services ; and Professional, Scientific and Technical Services . Although transitions often involve wage reductions, reskilling reduces the probability of wage loss from 67% to 65% and expands the upper bound of potential wage gains from 400% to 600%.