Green-jobs hiring expected to pick up

LAS VEGAS — Hiring in the alternative energy industry will pick up in the next 12 months, though it will take more time before so-called green-jobs will become a bigger part of the U.S. job market, Labor Secretary Hilda Solis said Monday.

"Once you start seeing more investments made in our economy recovering, as we stabilize and we get people back to work, then I think there'll be more interest in expanding," Solis said. "There'll be more, hopefully, credit available for this expansion, because there will be more confidence because that's what we're lacking right now — that investment and confidence in the market."

After a terrible start to the year, there are signs of a rebound for alternative energy, in part because of a push from the Obama administration. Yet there is a split at the state and federal level over whether there are better ways to stimulate the job market.

The second National Clean Energy Summit in Las Vegas, where Solis spoke with The Associated Press, drew a high-profile list of alternative energy backers, including former President Bill Clinton, Energy Secretary Steven Chu and U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.

Clinton said that lawmakers need to convince Americans that advancing on energy makes economic sense, and not stop short with programs that merely create a few thousand jobs over the next decade.

"It's peanuts — we just lost 7 million jobs," Clinton said. "If we want a good bill we have to convince people that it's an economic winner."

Clinton said he thinks the best energy solution right now is to promote efficiency by retrofitting homes and business so their owners save on energy bills.

"The least sexy topic is where the most jobs are," he said.

Al Gore, the former vice president, said the economy, climate and national security are all intertwined with the common thread of overdependence on carbon-based fuels.

"If your grab hold of that thread and pull on it all three of these crises will unravel, and we'll hold in our hand the solution to all three of them — that is to make a transition to a low-carbon economy and to put people to work doing it," he said.

Venture capitalists increased investments in alternative energy by 73 percent over the past three months compared with the first three months of the year, according to a report issued late last month by Ernst & Young LLP. Investors are still shaken, however, and investment remains meager compared with last year at this time.