Chlorine Jobs In The States

Because chlorine chemistry is fundamental, its employment and economic impacts are huge. Chlorine chemistry provides safe drinking water, pharmaceuticals, plastics, pulp and paper, automotive and electronic parts, metals, semiconductors, disinfectants, compact discs, air bags, hospital supplies, crop protection chemicals, dry cleaning and building materials.

The Boston economic consulting firm of Charles River Associates (CRA) says chlorine chemistry industries directly provide over 300,000 high-wage U.S. manufacturing jobs and 180,000 service sector jobs, generating annual payroll of $13.5 billion.

CRA estimates that chlorine chemistry directly and indirectly supports nearly two million American jobs with annual payroll of nearly $53 billion.

CRA identifies twenty-two states with 7,000 or more jobs directly dependent on chlorine chemistry. Eleven states have over 15,000 jobs directly dependent on chlorine chemistry. Major chlorine jobs states include Texas, Florida, California, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, Tennessee, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Illinois and Louisiana.

CRA did not do an in-depth study of the U.S. pharmaceutical sector, but many of its 260,000 U.S. jobs depend on chlorine chemistry to produce 85 percent of all pharmaceuticals.

No Chlorine, No... Did Anyone Say Jobs?

At a recent chlorine summit sponsored by the Massachussets Institute of Technology, Greenpeace USA called for an immediate ban on PVC, crop protection chemicals, pulp and paper products of chlorine chemistry, and the use of perchlorethylene by dry cleaners. (Greenpeace said it would, however, allow chlorine to be used for water purification and pharmaceutical manufacturing for the time being.) Greenpeace did not elaborate on its strategy to provide jobs for the hundreds of thousands of workers who would be displaced. Other target industries include petroleum and coal.

Other speakers at the conference, including Nobel Prize winner Mario Molina, acknowledged that some chlorine compounds may pose a problem, but saw no reason to eliminate chlorine chemistry.