Employment impact assessment studies - is there a best approach to assess employment impacts of RET deployment?

The use of renewable energy (RE) sources plays a significant role in increasing the security of energy supply and mitigating climate change. Whereas these roles are undisputed, there is an ongoing discussion about the employment impacts of promoting RE deployment. So far no common methodological approach has been developed on how to assess employment impacts of RE deployment. This paper represents the result of a project (IEA-RETD), which intention is to elaborate guidelines for the assessment of employment impacts and to provide insights on impact mechanisms for modelling RE deployment effects. Therefore, the different focus of gross and net impact assessment studies is elucidated and relevant aspects of these studies are discussed. Further, a few selected methodological approaches for impact assessment studies are outlined as well as the results of the recommended assessment approach are briefly presented.