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In just four months, Aaron Yang’s young career in renewable energy had hit the highs and lows you might expect of a more seasoned worker.

Yang, 22, graduated from New York University in December and landed a job at the Department of Energy in an office doling out grants to nascent clean technologies like hydrogen, advanced nuclear, and long-duration battery storage.

By April, he had been fired, rehired, and accepted a voluntary buyout under President Donald Trump and Elon Musk’s efforts to shrink the federal government. Renewable energy programs were a top target, with Trump on January 20 signing an executive order freezing funding authorized by the Inflation Reduction Act, President Joe Biden’s signature climate law. Since then, thousands of federal employees working on clean energy, environmental justice, and climate science have been terminated.

“Throughout college, I worked toward this career path,” Yang told Business Insider in April at a career fair in Washington, DC. “Then I got into the DOE and felt that was a huge achievement. So to then immediately get laid off has been tough to reconcile.”

Yang is among many Gen Zers entering a job market defined by hiring slumps in industries like tech, finance, and consulting. The upheaval in Washington has further clouded their career paths, particularly in the renewable energy industry, as tariffs and frozen federal funding have led companies to delay new projects or scrap them altogether.

White House spokesperson Taylor Rogers cited Friday’s strong jobs report to say that Trump was bringing jobs back “and making America the world’s manufacturing powerhouse once again.” A DOE spokesperson told Business Insider that the department was still reviewing its organizational structure to align with the president’s priorities.

“The American people provided President Trump with a mandate to govern and to unleash affordable, abundant, and secure American energy,” they said, adding, “No final decisions have been made and multiple plans are still being considered.”

Canceled clean energy factories

At a job fair during DC’s inaugural Climate Week, more than 50 companies and trade associations met some 1,200 job seekers. They lined up to chat with firms including Amazon, the solar manufacturer Qcells, and Arcadia, an AI analytics platform for energy.

Zainab Mirza organized the job fair for Clean Energy for America, a trade group that lobbies Congress and the administration on issues like protecting tax credits for renewable energy.

Mirza experienced similar career setbacks as Yang. She graduated from American University in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic, which thwarted her plans to pursue a career in international development overseas. In February, she was laid off from the DOE’s Loan Program Office, where she had just become a full-time employee after being a contractor for two years.

The slashed investments go beyond the federal government. In the first three months of 2025, companies canceled, closed, or downsized projects totaling nearly $8 billion in investment. This affected 16 new factories for electric vehicles, batteries, and hydrogen — more than three times the cancellation rate over the previous 30 months, according to an analysis by E2, a business group that advocates for clean energy, and the think tank Atlas Public Policy.

“If this self-inflicted and unnecessary market uncertainty continues, we’ll almost certainly see more projects paused, more construction halted, and more job opportunities disappear,” Michael Timberlake, spokesperson for E2, said in a statement.

Between January 2024 and March 2025, the number of new job postings across renewable power — including solar, wind, nuclear, hydropower, and geothermal — dropped by more than 20%, indicating a slowdown in labor demand, an analysis Revelio Labs conducted for BI showed.

Some companies continue to invest in the energy transition. In March, 10 solar, EV, and transmission manufacturing plants were announced, which, if built, could create 5,000 permanent jobs. That includes Tesla’s plans to build a battery factory near Houston.

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Billions of dollars deployed

Despite the hurdles, Mirza was optimistic about the future. While the DOE is expected to be less active and shift away from wind and solar projects, it may help finance nuclear, geothermal, and power grid resilience.

Katie Mehnert, CEO of ALLY Energy, an online career and networking platform, said the energy industry is always changing. Mehnert lives in Texas, where layoffs are also hitting the oil and gas sector. The rise of artificial intelligence is ushering in another transformation of how businesses operate. But there will be jobs, Mehnert said. ALLY recently partnered with Parallell, an AI-driven jobs platform that aims to make job hunting more efficient and better match people’s expertise to openings.

“We need more energy, we need sustainable energy, we need affordable energy,” Mehnert said. “And there’s plenty of money that’s been deployed. Now we need to find the best talent and match them with opportunities quicker. That way, we can minimize the disruption in job marketing and people’s personal lives.”

Mirza, for her part, encouraged young people to be open-minded to positions they may not have considered.

“I’m not sure where I want to go next,” Mirza said. “I’ve had a blast putting this event together. I think that people here can meet with employers they might not have heard of or thought about, or a skill that they haven’t developed. There are upskilling opportunities. There are incubators. Maybe you’ve had an idea for so long, and now you can test it out.”

Yang said he’s open-minded, too. Although his time at DOE was focused on long-duration energy storage like batteries, he is open to other technologies. During his undergrad internships, Yang worked on transmission infrastructure, sales teams, and policy development.

For now, Yang decided to accelerate his pursuit of a master’s in energy, policy, and climate at Johns Hopkins University while looking for a full time job. He’s come close several times, but ultimately, someone with more experience was hired.

“That’s no fault of my own,” Yang said. “There are a ton of talented people out there right now, and I haven’t worked full-time yet. So I’m cautiously optimistic. I don’t know what my future holds.”

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