Carbon Job Market Booming but Talent Pool is Dry

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LONDON (Reuters) - Million-dollar jobs in the infant global carbon market, which will double in value to $60 billion this year, are standing vacant because of a lack of suitable talent, according to senior recruiters in the industry.

Armed with lucrative pay packages, recruiters are scouring a niche international talent pool for potential applicants in the three-year old carbon trading sector.

 

By Michael Szabo

LONDON (Reuters) - Million-dollar jobs in the infant global carbon market, which will double in value to $60 billion this year, are standing vacant because of a lack of suitable talent, according to senior recruiters in the industry.

Armed with lucrative pay packages, recruiters are scouring a niche international talent pool for potential applicants in the three-year old carbon trading sector.

But senior level carbon market positions, like managing director, with base salaries around 150,000 pounds ($310,500) and compensation packages of as much as $1 million, are going unfilled for up to six weeks, said Mark Tomlinson, a director at London-based executive recruiter DNA Search.

"The more junior roles, analysts or carbon project originators for example, starting around 60,000 pounds ($124,200) are being left vacant for two to three months," he told Reuters on Wednesday.

Global carbon trading, spawned by the United Nations' Kyoto Protocol and the European Union, allows governments and corporations to buy and sell permits to emit planet-warming greenhouse gases.

Vacancies for specialist jobs, including climate change analysts, managers, and carbon traders, tripled in the financial year 2006/07, environmental recruiters Acre Resources said last month.

London-based Acre said the industry's average wage was around 43,000 pounds ($89,010) and predicted job growth in the sector to soar by up to 50 times its current size by 2012.

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Although London is considered the nucleus of global carbon markets, the workforce shortage doesn't stop there.

Fast developing countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America are embracing investment in clean energy projects under Kyoto's carbon trading scheme, placing a premium on multilingual candidates.

"There's a real shortage of talent in South Africa," Robert Ashdown, a consultant for PricewaterhouseCoopers, told Reuters. "Our (projects) team has doubled in the past three months... so we've had to start looking internationally to bring people in."

Britain's HSBC <HSBA.L> has more than 315,000 employees worldwide, but is still having to recruit analysts externally for its new Climate Change Centre of Excellence in Bangalore.

To browse carbon job listings, including the roles mentioned in this article, visit the Reuters Carbon Community at http://www.reutersinteractive.com/carbon

($1=.4831 Pound)

(Reporting by Michael Szabo; Editing by James Jukwey)