Texaco, Shell Workers Fight Discrimination
Worthly of Note: Oil; Employment
"Global enrollment in geosciences and other university majors relevant to the oil industry is dropping at the same time that the demand to devise new fuels and refining processes is rising. In the U.S., enrollment in geosciences hit a peak of 35,000 students in 1982 but now meanders around the 5,000 level, according to Scott Tinker, director of the Bureau of Economic Geology at the University of Texas."
"It is now around 1965 levels," he said. While enrollment in these programs is rising in China and a few other nations, it's mostly below the level required in nations where oil is being produced." "The picture is even worse at the graduate level. In 1982, about 4,000 Ph.D.s and master's degrees were awarded in geosciences in the U.S., and nearly half the recipients went into the oil industry, said Raul Restucci, executive vice president of exploration and production in the Middle East at Shell. Now only about 400 to 600 advanced degrees are handed out, and only 20 percent of recipients go to work for oil companies."
"The industry is having a real tough time filling jobs," Restucci said. "People availability will be a key constraint for a supply side response to increasing demand. In Houston, half of the work force will retire in the next 10 to 12 years."