Tens of thousands of jobs in Europe have already been lost due to the green transition.

Omissions

• The claim ignores job creation from the green transition: the EEA reports that EU employment in renewable energy production doubled from approximately 600,000 in 2021 to 1.2 million in 2022.
• Eurofound research concludes that EU decarbonisation measures result in a marginal net increase in employment, contradicting the implication that the green transition is a net destroyer of jobs.
• The automotive supply job losses (~56,000 cited by CLEPA) are influenced by multiple factors beyond the green transition, including global competition from China and post-pandemic supply chain restructuring.
• Coal sector employment decline in Europe occurred mainly before 2000 (per the European Court of Auditors), predating the modern green transition policy framework.
• The claim does not specify a time period, making precise verification against comprehensive EU-wide data impossible.
• Some sources used were published after the session date, though they contain data from relevant periods.
• No primary official EU-wide statistic on jobs 'lost due to the green transition' exists as a discrete metric; the claim relies on sectoral and partial data.

Sources

• PrimaryEurofound (European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions)New research which shows a marginal increase in net employment from EU decarbonisation measures, but also potentially broad shifts in the labour market.
• PrimaryEuropean Environment Agency (EEA)In the EU, employment in renewable energy production doubled from around 600,000 in 2021 to 1.2 million in 2022.
• SecondaryCLEPA (European Association of Automotive Suppliers)Despite forecasts that over 100,000 new jobs would be created by 2025, the reality has been a net loss of nearly 56,000 positions in the automotive supply industry.
• SecondaryPoliticoEU countries risk mass job losses in the coming years as high energy costs, industrial restructuring and the green transition weigh on the economy. The article discusses future risks of hundreds of thousands of job losses, not already-realised losses.