As global ethanol production rose to 12.2 billion gallons in 2007, the ethanol industry worldwide helped to create hundreds of thousands of jobs. However, in many parts of the world, the jobs that have been created are not decent jobs, according to a United Nations Environment Program report titled “Green Jobs: Towards Decent work in a Sustainable, Low-Carbon World” published Sept. 24.
According to the United Nations, the United States and Brazil account for 95 percent of the world’s ethanol production. It’s estimated that as many as 200,000 people—from farmers, to construction workers and plant operators—are employed by the corn-based ethanol industry in the United States. Brazil’s sugarcane-based ethanol industry, which accounts for about half of global ethanol exports, employs as many as 500,000 people and, while workers in Brazilian ethanol refineries receive about 30 percent more pay than laborers involved in the sugarcane harvest, the number of jobs at refineries—even in the United States—is much lower than expected. In Iowa, for example, each 50 MMgy ethanol plant has created on average 35 direct and 100 indirect jobs, much less than the hoped-for several-hundred, the U.N. said.
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Meanwhile, the number of laborers involved in the sugarcane harvest continues to fall with increased use of mechanical harvesters. In 1992, Brazil’s sugarcane sector employed 620,000 people, however, this year it employed 300,000. For many sugarcane plantation workers the wages are low, the working conditions are often extremely poor, and their rights are suppressed, the U.N. said. Cane cutters are facing stagnant wages and unemployment. Those who are employed experience poor hygiene and nutrition, as well as violence from company security guards. Oftentimes, workers are in debt to the companies they work for due to exorbitant charges to workers for transportation, accommodations, and food. “These are not decent jobs by any stretch of the imagination,” the U.N. report said.
Meanwhile, according to the report, employment in ethanol-related jobs worldwide is expected to increase. Colombia’s ethanol-blending mandate may add 170,000 jobs in the sugarcane-based ethanol industry over the next several years and in Venezuela, an ethanol blend mandate of 10 percent might provide 1 million jobs in the sugarcane-based ethanol industry there by 2012.
The World Bank estimates that a region-wide 10 percent mandate blend of ethanol could yield between 700,000 and 1.1 million jobs in sub-Saharan Africa. In Nigeria, cassava and sugarcane crops grown for ethanol might create more than 200,000 jobs. According to the U.N., Chinese officials think that, long-term, as many as 2.9 million jobs might be created in China for producing ethanol.
