Posted on 02/13/2015 10:19:19 AM PST by thackney
"This is the really crappy part of the job, and this is what I hate about this industry frankly," the chief executive of oilfield services company Baker Hughes complained as he announced it would lay off 7,000 employees....
More than 100,000 layoffs have been announced across the industry worldwide since prices began to slide last summer, according to a tally kept by Bloomberg....
Oil and gas production is an exceptionally capital-intensive industry. But the sector's most important and scarce resource is its workforce.
The oil industry's popular image may be a roughneck in soiled overalls drinking in a strip joint, but it has an enormous demand for highly skilled and, during a boom, very well compensated workers.
Modern oil and gas production is technically complicated and dangerous work. The days of drilling wildcat wells more or less at random and allowing the well to blow out in a massive gusher are long over.
The industry still provides employment for unskilled casual labour. In boom times some of the jobs for truck drivers and other support staff can be exceptionally well paid.
But at its core are tens of thousands of petroleum engineers and petroleum geoscientists, as well as tool pushers, drillers, derrickmen and roughnecks on the rigs themselves, who perform specialised functions which demand years of formal education and, most importantly, experience in the field.
The challenge is recruiting, training and retaining these workers and maintaining an appropriate long-term labour force profile in an industry stuck with a profound boom-bust cycle and beset by periodic mass layoffs....
Until recently, the oil industry was preoccupied by a looming shortage of skilled workers, especially mid-career professionals ready to step into supervisory and senior leadership roles.
...But there is an acute shortage of mid-career professionals aged 35-45, with 10-20 years training and experience.
(Excerpt) Read more at rigzone.com ...
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