Low-carbon transition in a coal-producing country: A labour market perspective

The decarbonisation of energy in a coal-producing country involves phasing out the coal sector and reducing employment in coal mining. Our case study of Poland reveals that in the past, half of the workers that left the mining sector failed to move to other sectors and left the labour market. This could be explained by the lower education levels of miners and lower wages in other sectors relative to mining. We use a mathematical model to demonstrate that if ex-miners fail to move to green or neutral sectors, decarbonisation involves a net loss of the labour force, regardless of the number of jobs created in the green sector. The loss of labour constitutes a macroeconomic cost that must be added to changes in energy system costs. The size of the cost does not depend on whether reduction of emissions is achieved by the substitution of coal with renewable energy sources or by an increase in energy efficiency. The size of the cost is largest when the reduction of emissions is achieved by replacing coal with imported gas. Finally, we demonstrate how costs related to the imperfect transition of labour could be taken into account in numerical general equilibrium models.