What is the difference between workforce transition and a just transition?

Workforce transition is the labor-market core of a just transition: retraining, redeployment, income support and job placement for workers whose jobs shrink or disappear. A just transition is broader, also covering affected communities, regional economies, social protection and who gets a say in decisions, as set out in the ILO's 2015 guidelines for a just transition.

What should a workforce transition plan include?

A workforce transition plan should profile affected workers by skills, age, pay and location, map realistic jobs within reach, and set out redeployment, retraining and retirement-bridge options. Income support, pension protection and a timeline tied to closure dates belong in the plan too, negotiated with unions or worker representatives from the start.

Can oil and gas workers move into clean energy jobs?

Many oil and gas workers can move into other energy work. The IEA's World Energy Employment 2025 found that, with targeted retraining, about two-thirds of oil and gas supply workers have the base skills to move into other parts of energy. Skills are only part of the picture, since new jobs may sit elsewhere or pay differently.

What is Workforce Transition?

Workforce transition is the planned movement of workers out of jobs that are shrinking or changing, such as coal mining, fossil power generation or oil refining, and into new work through retraining, redeployment, income support and job placement. In climate policy it is the labor-market core of a just transition: the part that decides whether a particular worker still has a paycheck after a plant closes.

The term covers more than training, and a few distinctions matter:

Reskilling versus upskilling. Reskilling prepares a worker for a different job; upskilling adds skills for a job that is changing, such as a power plant technician moving into battery storage or grid work.
Income and time, not only courses. Wage bridges, pension protection, relocation help and hiring commitments can matter as much as training, especially for workers near retirement.
Beyond fossil fuels. The same questions arise wherever the energy transition reorganizes work, including vehicle manufacturing as production moves to electric models.
Route, not destination. Green jobs describe where workers might go; workforce transition is how they get there, and whether the new work pays and protects as well as the old.

Why It Matters

The exposure is large and poorly covered. The IEA's Accelerating Just Transitions for the Coal Sector (March 2024) counts 7.8 million people working in coal worldwide. Yet at the end of 2023, just 14% of coal workers in coal-dependent countries were covered by just transition policies.

The decline is also uneven. The IEA's World Energy Employment 2025 found global coal supply employment in 2024 was 8% above its 2019 level, driven by India, China and Indonesia, even as coal jobs fell 20% in advanced economies. Planning horizons therefore differ sharply from one country to the next.

Skills overlap is real but not automatic. According to the same IEA report, with targeted retraining about two-thirds of oil and gas supply workers, and about half of workers in fossil fuel power supply chains, have the base skills to move into other parts of energy. Pay can pull the other way: in 2025, wage increases averaged 3.7% in oil and gas and 0.8% in renewables.

How It Works / Key Components

The reference framework

The ILO's Guidelines for a just transition, adopted by a tripartite meeting of government, employer and worker experts in October 2015, remain the main international reference. They span nine policy areas: macroeconomic and growth policy, industrial and sectoral policy, enterprise policy, skills development, occupational safety and health, social protection, active labor market policy, rights, and social dialogue and tripartism.

Climate diplomacy now points to the same framework. In November 2025 in Belém, parties to the Paris Agreement decided to develop a just transition mechanism for international cooperation, technical assistance and capacity-building. The decision names the ILO guidelines among the instruments countries can draw on, and asks negotiators to recommend how to put the mechanism into operation, for consideration in November 2026.

What a plan contains

Workforce profile: who is affected, by role, skills, age, pay and home location.
Demand map: realistic jobs within reach, including with suppliers and successor employers, and the training each requires.
Pathways: internal redeployment, retraining for outside roles, and bridges to retirement for those close to it.
Income and protection: severance, bridge payments and protection of accrued pensions.
Governance: a plan negotiated with unions or worker representatives, with published milestones.

Two models worth knowing

Bridges to retirement. Germany's adjustment payment (Anpassungsgeld), administered by the Federal Office for Economic Affairs and Export Control, supports workers aged 58 or older who lose their jobs at lignite mines or coal plants closed under the country's coal exit law. It runs for up to five years as a bridge to early retirement.
Regional funds. According to the European Commission in 2025, the EU's Just Transition Fund provides €19.7 billion in EU funding, rising to €27 billion with national contributions, across 96 territories. About €3.1 billion, roughly a sixth, is dedicated to skills training, job search and education; the rest can fund new businesses, research, clean energy and site rehabilitation.

The lesson from both: money for places and money for people are different budgets, and a credible plan needs both.

Measuring outcomes

Track what happens to people rather than program activity: the share of affected workers re-employed within a year, wage replacement rates, job quality in new roles, retirements bridged, and results by age, gender and location.

Council Fire's Approach

We approach workforce transition as a planning and engagement problem as much as a training one. For agencies, utilities and companies facing closures or major workforce shifts, we start by mapping who is affected, where they live and what their skills, ages and pay look like, alongside the regional economy they depend on. Our stakeholder engagement work brings workers, unions, employers, training providers and local government together early, before closure dates are fixed, and we connect the resulting plan to climate resilience and sustainability strategy so it accounts for a community's climate exposure as well as its jobs. Where outcomes need tracking, we can build the decision tools through Council Fire Labs.

Frequently Asked Questions

What role do unions play in workforce transition?

A central one. The ILO guidelines make social dialogue and tripartism one of their nine policy areas and ask governments to consult workers' and employers' organizations on skills and social protection policy. The 2025 Belém decision likewise stresses social dialogue, labor rights and decent work. For employers, that means bringing unions or worker representatives in while options are still open, not after a closure date is announced.

How should transition plans treat older workers?

For workers close to retirement, a bridge can make more sense than retraining for a new career. Germany's adjustment payment, for example, supports laid-off coal workers aged 58 or older for up to five years. The ILO guidelines also ask governments to consider measures that protect retirement security for workers facing major structural change, so pension rights deserve as much attention as training budgets.

When should an employer start transition planning?

As soon as a closure or major change is plausible, not when the date is announced. Retraining, redeployment and regional investment take time to organize, and workers make better decisions with more notice. Early planning also leaves time to line up successor employers and training capacity.

What is Workforce Transition?