Carbon pricing will of course reduce the demand for carbon-intensive goods and services but at the same time it will increase the demand for low-carbon goods and services. In other words, the kinds of jobs we do will change, the total number of jobs we do will stay the same. People will still buy a fridge, stock it with food and occasionally need that fridge repaired. It’s just that in the future it’s likely going to be a more energy-efficient fridge because that’s the fridge that’s going to be the economically sound consumer choice.
The nature of the work we do has always changed. There are so few sundial polishers about these days but someone needs to repair your phone screen when you crack it using your all-purpose audio/visual communication, entertainment and information retrieval device as a flashlight to help dig your keys out from beneath the couch.
Generally, when technological and economic changes happen we, humanity, get to work. There may well be some retraining involved, as has been done in Alberta’s coal economy, but if it helps you sleep at night, analysis of the effects of B.C’s carbon tax suggests that, between 2007 and 2013 it was wash job-wise. And a clean wash. That’s a good thing. Studies in other places indicate similar outcomes