CHANGE: Utility Jobs Lost as New Power Plants Need Fewer Workers. “Older plants are being supplanted by newer power plants fired by natural gas, as well as wind and solar farms.”

The Center for Energy Workforce Development, a group backed by six major utility industry groups, estimates that total direct utility employment has fallen to 505,000 from 550,000 since 2006. That is eroding a stable source of well-paying jobs, especially in rural areas, and generating local political pressure at a time when President Donald Trump has made blue-collar job retention a major issue.

Many industry leaders believe the shift is inevitable.

“The power sector is just not going to contribute to the economy in terms of jobs the way it once did,” said Curt Morgan, president and chief executive of Vistra Energy Corp , the electricity producer which used to be part of the former Energy Future Holdings Corp., and is planning to merge with rival Dynegy Inc.

That’s strange. Barack Obama spent most of a decade assuring me that clean energy would lead to more and higher-paying jobs.