GIZ: Jordan’s First-Ever Green Jobs Assessment

The “Green Action in Enterprises” (GAIN) project, supported by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development and implemented by the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH, collaborated with Cambridge Econometrics to produce the first-ever green jobs assessment for Jordan. The study aimed to estimate the current levels of green jobs in selected sectors and the potential for future green jobs through economic modelling.

The assessment followed the International Labour Organisation’s GAIN methodology for green jobs assessments. Cambridge Econometrics developed a macroeconomic model, known as Frames (Jordan) to analyse the socioeconomic and environmental impacts of “what-if” scenarios.

Six sectors with significant green activities were identified: agriculture, waste and water, manufacturing, energy, tourism, and transport. These sectors accounted for a sustainable portion of the country’s employment; between 69,000 and 104,000 jobs are considered as green. This represented 22% to 33% of workforce in these sectors with transport and agriculture having the highest number of green jobs.

Key findings

• Job growth: In a business-as-usual scenario, Jordan’s total jobs would increase by 127,000, while green jobs would increase by 5,500. However, if the suggested green initiatives were put in place, the economy could see an increase of 113,00 green jobs.
• Recycled plastic: In the manufacturing sector, there are around 3,700 estimated green jobs. In a business-as-usual scenario, there will be about 500 more jobs by 2030. However with the new polyester staple fibres (PSF) facility using recycled PET, the number of green jobs in the plastic sector could increase from 3,700 to nearly 4,400 by 2030.
• Textile sector: Introducing circularity in the textile sector, increases green jobs from about 70 in 2022 to over 72,000 by 2030. That’s because existing jobs are made green, plus around 250 new green jobs are created by the green initiative. The shift also leads to an increase in green jobs in the waste sector of 450 by 2030.
• Food-processing sector: Because of a lack of information on employment numbers, the number of green jobs in these companies is currently underestimated. In a business-as-usual scenario, the sector would grow by about 3,000 jobs by 2030. However if Jordanian food-processing manufactures invest in resource efficiency, they could create more green jobs than in the baseline. If 60% of the medium-to-large companies adopt green practices starting in 2024, over 60% of the jobs in the sector could be green. That could mean more than 34,000 green jobs, including 50 new ones.
• Sludge management: As wastewater systems are expanded and improved, managing sludge sustainability has become a priority because of the high cost of disposing of it. The what-if scenario shows that selling the sludge could create more green jobs in the waste and water sector. This investment benefits the economy in the short term, with around 1,000 extra jobs created to build the sludge-drying facility.
• Water supply: The water sector is important for Jordan’s economy. Currently, there are about 2,000 green jobs in this sector, making up 25% of the sector’s jobs. Without any further initiatives, the water sector is expected to grow by 5% between 2023-2030.
• Green public transport: Up to 75% of the jobs in the transport sector are green jobs, mainly because public/ shared transport is considered to be a greener than individual level transport. In a business-as-usual case, the number of green jobs in the public sector would increase to almost 67,000 by 2030.