Offshore wind job training built for a boom is facing down a bust

Offshore wind workforce programs like Long Island's National Offshore Wind Training Center are downsizing and diversifying after the Trump administration's actions gutted an industry that once expected to need 77,000 workers by 2030. Trump's day-one 'wind order' paused new leases and permits, and later stop-work orders hit five projects already under construction; courts overturned both, but the administration kept fighting through rescinded grants, revoked tax credits, and payments to developers to abandon their leases outright.

The U.S. now has about 6 gigawatts of offshore wind online or under construction, less than a third of what Biden had approved, and no new offshore project has broken ground since Trump took office. Program directors like Roger Clayman insist the industry isn't dead, just delayed, while workers like former Navy sailor Billy Bishop watch contracts fall through and wonder if their current job is the last one for a while.

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