High-Speed Rail Jobs
Building a national high-speed rail network will provide a vast stimulus to the American economy. The high-speed rail industry will become a mega-job creator on the scale of the auto and aviation industries.
Jobs in Whole New Industries
The building of high-speed rail systems requires a whole series of specialized skills and careers. Construction of new high-speed rail systems involves not only building infrastructure and tracks, but also new stations, maintenance facilities, and new buildings around the stations. This leads to dense communities springing up around new rail stations, creating additional jobs.
SOURCE: TTD, AFL-CIO
A new high-speed rail line requires new products, parts, and high-tech systems to operate. This starts with the trains and the thousands of components and parts to the power systems, signalling and communication systems, high-tech control centers, workshops, and stations.
There will be millions of long-term jobs created throughout this entirely new domestic manufacturing industry. It will keep growing for many decades, and cross-stimulate a number of other industries along the way.
As high-speed rail adoption grows in America, major hiring can be expected in the following areas:
- Civil/track engineering
- Electrical engineering
- Signaling & telecommunications
- Rolling stock
- Station operations
- Train management
- Depot/operations & control
- IT and data
- Safety and security
- Project management
- Land management, urban design and master planning
- Public relations and administration
High-speed rail could become a major export industry if the U.S. builds a large, sustained network and uses domestic-content requirements strategically. The strongest evidence comes from China, France, and Japan.
High-speed rail systems create a large, predictable domestic market for advanced rail equipment, steel, electrical systems, concrete, signaling,controls, and precision manufacturing — and that market can help U.S. companies hire skilled workers and develop products and capabilities that they can then sell to the rest of the world.
SOURCE: The World Bank
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An alliance of 13 rail unions representing more than 160,000 freight, regional, commuter, and passenger railroad workers in the United States,
the High-Speed Rail Labor Coalition, has recently signed MOUs with three different high-speed rail projects.
Since 2023, the Coalition has signed MOUs with Brightline West, the California High-Speed Rail project and the High Desert Corridor. Thanks to these agreements, thousands of operations and maintenance employees working on the Southwest high-speed rail network will have good-paying union jobs with strong benefits packages and pensions. After signing the first agreement in 2023 with Brightline West, the Coalition put out the following statement:
"The High-Speed Rail Labor Coalition is proud to be in partnership with Brightline West in this historic project. Americans want high-speed rail, and Brightline West and the High-Speed Rail Labor Coalition will deliver. Brightline West will be the most elegant travel by rail experience you can have in America, and it will be the catalyst for America’s renaissance of travel by high-speed rail. The High-Speed Rail Labor Coalition is ready to bring this transformative transportation project to Americans. Let’s get to work.”
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