Renewable job market

Companies looking to add employees include Aeronautica Windpower in Plymouth, lithium-ion battery maker Boston-Power Inc. in Westborough, and Conservation Services Group, also in Westborough. Eco-friendly experience is a plus, but not required.

The workforce expansions are being partly spurred by the federal economic stimulus package, which includes billions for home energy-efficiency upgrades and an extension of a tax credit for renewable energy technologies such as wind power. Within the next two years, stimulus spending is expected to create or save 79,000 jobs in Massachusetts, and an estimated 3.5 million nationwide, according to the federal government.

Soon after Congress passed the nearly $800 billion bill last month, Stephen Cowell, chief executive of Conservation Services Group, said he told his staff, "Get the resumes together." In the last six months, the energy-efficiency company has hired about 50 employees in its main office. Because of the stimulus bill as well as several new contracts, Cowell plans to add 200 more jobs this year. The company currently employs about 400 and does business in 22 states. At least 30 to 40 of the new jobs will be in Massachusetts, he said.

"We're sort of the tip of the iceberg," Cowell said. "A couple of hundred people will be hired here, but that means that 2,000 people will be hired at the local level to do the work that we spec out and help facilitate."

It's unclear how just how many green jobs will be created in Massachusetts by stimulus-related initiatives, though preliminary estimates put the number at thousands.

According to a spokesman for congressman Ed Markey, the Malden Democrat who chairs the Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming, Massachusetts is set to get $125 million in stimulus funds for weatherization projects and $55 million in state energy block grants to be used mainly for energy-efficiency programs. That money is expected to create an estimated 6,500 jobs related to weatherization and hundreds as part of the energy-efficiency programs.

The jobs are coming at a time when the US unemployment rate is at its highest in about two decades, according to the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics. In Massachusetts, the January unemployment rate was 7.4 percent - the highest since 1993 - and job losses for the month totaled 4,900, according to the state's Executive Office of Labor and Workforce Development.

Kevin Shaw, a Boston partner at accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers called the injection of stimulus money into the clean-tech sector a "silver lining" in a faltering economy. According to a recently released report from his firm, the legislation contains about $83 billion for "clean-tech spending and tax plans" and positions the industry as a "key driver of economic stabilization and job growth."

Still, he was realistic about just how much the nascent industry would be able to do for an economy whose biggest sectors, including auto manufacturing, are failing.

"I think it will stimulate employment in the area na tionally and locally in Boston," said Shaw. "I think it's not going to come overnight and it's certainly not going to save the world." But, he added, green industries are "laying a great foundation for growth to happen."

On a modest level, it is already taking place in Massachusetts.

At Boston-Power, which makes the Sonata battery used in Hewlett-Packard's notebook computers, vice president of marketing Sally Bament said she is looking to hire about two dozen people in marketing, sales, and other areas.

Evergreen Solar, the Marlborough-based maker of solar panels, also is hoping to hire 90 to 100 people at a manufacturing plant in Devens, said Gary Pollard, vice president of human resources. The plant, which opened last summer, is expected to employ more than 800 when it reaches full capacity.

Aeronautica Windpower, meanwhile, hopes to bring on between 50 and 100 employees to begin producing midscale wind turbines at a facility that the company hopes to open somewhere in the state this spring. Potential jobs include technical positions that mechanics, assembly line workers, and others might fit into, as well as positions in business development and customer relations. The company currently has a 10-person staff refurbishing wind turbines.

And at GreatPoint Energy Inc. in Cambridge, executive vice president Daniel Goldman, said his company wants to hire more people, and also is teaming with the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth to start a paid internship program that will give students an on-the-job opportunity to learn how to turn materials like coal, wood chips, and even trash into natural gas.

"What we'd probably like to do is train the people," Goldman said, "and then as they graduate, make them full-time analysts."

Some, like Del Sian, are already benefiting from the expected injection of cash.

Sian, a software development manager, lost his job of three years at Fidelity in November and didn't know where he'd find work. His previous employer, a company in the medical field, had just gone through a round of layoffs.

So, he called a recruiter, who had previously helped him find work, and also posted his resume online. He was hoping for an energy-related job, he said, because he knew it was a "hot industry."

Then the recruiter called him about Conservation Services Group. He's been on the job about five weeks, working again in software development.

"I'm very happy," Sian said. When he first researched the company, he recalled, "I said, 'Wow, this has a lot of potential - especially with the stimulus package coming down the road.' "

Erin Ailworth can be reached at eailworth@globe.com.