A skilled worker shortage is becoming an ‘existential’ problem for the energy transition: Bottlenecks Series
Zero: The Climate Race
Bloomberg
4.7 • 219 Ratings
🗓️ 5 June 2025
⏱️ 32 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Western economies need to electrify and fast, but where are all the skilled workers going to come from to install the heat pumps, solar panels and batteries needed? This week on Zero, Akshat Rathi talks with Olivia Rudgard about the shortage of labor in electrification industries, and why some experts are calling it an ‘existential’ crisis. This is the second episode in Bottlenecks, a new series exploring the lesser known obstacles standing in the way of our electrified future.
Explore further:
- Read the Big Take: There Aren't Enough Engineers to Meet the World's Growing Hunger for Power
- Previous episode in Zero’s Bottleneckes series: How a Shortage of Transformers Threatens Electricity Supply
- Northvolt Hits End of Line After Failing to Reach Rescue Deal
Zero is a production of Bloomberg Green. Our producer is Oscar Boyd. Special thanks to: Jess Beck, Sommer Saadi, Mohsis Andam and Siobhan Wagner. Thoughts or suggestions? Email us at [email protected]. For more coverage of climate change and solutions, visit https://www.bloomberg.com/green.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is an IHeart podcast. |
| 0:04.3 | The data that matters for your investments. |
| 0:07.2 | The entire auto sector is higher today. |
| 0:09.6 | And analysis on the companies making news on Wall Street. |
| 0:12.8 | Tesla's been a stock that's been in focus. |
| 0:14.3 | Shares have really been all over the math this morning. |
| 0:16.5 | Listen to the Stock Movers report from Bloomberg. |
| 0:19.4 | Let's talk about some other decliners. |
| 0:21.5 | It's your short audio report on the day's winners and losers in the stock market. |
| 0:25.8 | Second biggest driver in terms of points for the S&P 500. |
| 0:28.9 | Subscribe to the Stockmovers report on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen. |
| 0:35.2 | Welcome to Zero. I am Akshadrati. |
| 0:40.0 | This week, where are all the people? |
| 0:57.0 | Last year, I spoke to Keith Anderson, CEO of Scottish Power, for an episode of zero, |
| 1:01.1 | and there was a throwaway line in that long conversation that has stuck with me. |
| 1:02.7 | It was about people. |
| 1:07.5 | Right now, I'm looking to employ another thousand engineers. |
| 1:11.8 | My counterparts at SSCE are looking to employ another thousand engineers, |
| 1:16.3 | and my counterparts on National Grid are looking to employ another thousand engineers. |
| 1:21.5 | We're all looking for about two and a half thousand engineers. There are not two and a half thousand unemployed engineers in Central Scotland. So if we don't do anything differently, |
| 1:26.6 | we'll just run around stealing staff from each other. |
| 1:29.7 | The people challenge for any growing industry is a known problem. But Keith's answer made me look |
... |
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