[jnordwick]

Of course, but that it takes more people is a net negative. I didn't say there aren't any positives to wind power. I think it is a balanced part of an alternative energy solution. That is takes so many people resources is a worry though.

[philipkglass]

The human labor required to produce a MWh of electricity from utility-scale wind or solar plants is significantly less than the labor that went into producing it from older fossil plants. The growing employment numbers you see in solar/wind right now are mostly an artifact of rapid expansion. American coal plant construction employment is about zero right now and all you see is the operational labor; solar/wind are growing quickly and what you mostly see are the temporary construction jobs.

See e.g. my comment here (search for "Nucla"): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13749769

A utility scale solar farm can be more than an order of magnitude more productive per employee than an old coal plant.

So can a utility scale wind farm. MidAmerican's Wind VIII project has 40 permanent jobs and generated 3,622,316 MWh in 2016 (10.33 real annualized megawatts per employee).

https://www.midamericanenergy.com/content/pdf/wind_facts.pdf

https://www.eia.gov/electricity/data/browser/#/plant/58883/

https://www.eia.gov/electricity/data/browser/#/plant/58884/

https://www.eia.gov/electricity/data/browser/#/plant/58885/

https://www.eia.gov/electricity/data/browser/#/plant/58886/

(The EIA data for Wind VIII is spread across these sub-projects.)

Utility-scale wind and solar are also thriftier with labor than nuclear plants.

Old coal plant: 0.87 real annualized MW/full time employee (0.57 megawatts per employee if you include the fuel mining jobs)

New AP1000 reactors at Vogtle, assuming 90% capacity factor: 2.5 real MW/FTE

Desert Sunlight solar farm: 9.8 real MW/FTE

Wind VIII wind complex: 10.3 real MW/FTE

[firebones]

Any infrastructure project will require more people while it is being built out, and the rate of job growth will scale with the rate of build out. That isn't a negative or a worry. If the market becomes saturated, the growth will stop and a lot of the jobs will no longer be needed.

[vkou]

It's not if you're a politician. "Fewer jobs! More efficiency!" is a surefire way to not get elected.

Your constituents have to eat.

[maxerickson]

The negative of employing more people is pretty abstract if the power costs about the same for end users.