HALLIBURTON!
Posted on 07/28/2015 5:32:46 AM PDT by thackney
Halliburton has cut nearly 14,000 jobs and Baker Hughes has laid off 13,000 employees since they began trimming their headcounts last year to cope with the oil-market crash, officials said Monday.
Those figures, shown in quarterly securities filings Friday and confirmed by company spokeswomen on Monday, are several thousand more jobs than the last time the oil field service companies gave an estimate of their planned layoffs in April.
Halliburton’s latest layoff estimate exceeds its April figure by 5,000 jobs, bringing its cuts up to16 percent of its workforce. And Baker Hughes’ estimate is up by 2,500 jobs, up to 21 percent of its headcount. Halliburton’s payroll peaked at more than 80,000 last year, spokeswoman Emily Mir said. Baker Hughes had 62,000 at the end of last year, according to regulatory papers.
That means the world’s top four oil field service companies – Schlumberger, Halliburton, Baker Hughes and Weatherford International – have either cut or planned to cut 58,000 jobs this year in response to the collapse of crude prices.
The companies have reduced their headcounts and consolidated facilities across the United States and elsewhere. Houston-based Halliburton and Baker Hughes, which are in talks with antitrust regulators about sealing a $34.6 billion merger, say they haven’t cut any positions because of the deal, but rather because of the global slump in drilling activity.
“With market conditions remaining challenging, we have taken decisive actions to strengthen our revenue and reduce our cost structure companywide to improve profitability and remain competitive in this environment,” Baker Hughes spokeswoman Melanie Kania said in an emailed statement.
“We’ve made efforts to minimize reductions through alternative cost-cutting measures when possible and impacted employees will be eligible for severance benefits.”
Not good news.
Here’s a question. When prices skyrocketed, we were told it the oil companies profit was not a factor because it’s just an add on to the cost per barrel...that the revenue/profit for oil companies were fairly static. Now with the drop in price, we’re seeing huge layoffs. Is it because these are businesses who ‘support’ the drilling, exploration, processing, etc and with the drop in price there is simply less new exploration and processing? That the reward is so small those functions have been reduced?
HALLIBURTON!
It is because the amount of drilling is greatly reduced during the time of low oil prices. If you drill only half the number of wells per year, you tend to use half the equipment and labor.
DW: INDUSTRY LAYOFFS CONTRIBUTING TO ANOTHER LOST GENERATION?
http://www.ogfj.com/articles/2015/05/dw-industry-layoffs-contributing-to-another-lost-generation.html
Douglas-Westwood’s May 4 edition of DW Monday comments on how current oil and gas industry layoffs may be leading to another lost generation of workers, reminiscent of the shortage of experienced workers that the industry endured following the oil price downturn of the 1980s.
The oil and gas industry currently suffers a shortage of mid-career professionals primed for leadership and supervisory roles, the legacy of the last oil price downturn in the 1980s to the mid-1990s. At that time, the industry endured significant job losses, and hiring came to a standstill. As a result of the limited talent added, the group of individuals advancing into supervisory or eventual leadership positions in the oil and gas industry is notably small.
Since oil price started declining late last summer, layoffs in today’s industry are nearing 100,000 worldwide. Oilfield service companies Schlumberger, Baker Hughes, and Halliburton announced layoffs of around 20,000, 10,500, and 9,000 employees, respectively, while exploration and production (E&P) companies BP and Chevron each announced layoffs approaching 10,000 of their employees. According to a survey completed in January, 44% of the surveyed companies indicated that they plan to hire fewer workers over the next six months while 5% indicated they plan to completely halt hiring efforts.
Although the oil and gas industry employs numbers of low-skilled workers, the lifeblood of the industry is the variety of specialized engineers, technicians, and rig crews who boast years of involvement in the field, along with formal training or university degrees. Continuing widespread layoffs, frozen or reduced pay checks, and the effects a lengthy downturn will have on the industry can dissuade such individuals from pursuing careers in oil and gas, and encourage college graduates to move into more stable industries.
Just as the legacy of the 1980s–1990s created a shortage of experienced workers – contributing to rising costs, execution challenges, and safety concerns – the numbers of lost personnel, both current and future, threatens the long-term capacity of the industry. To many in the business, DW Monday notes, it feels like history is repeating itself.
Well sure it is. This means the unemployment rate will drop to 4.7%.
Geez...get on board will ya?
Gotcha. That was my guess. It seems like it’s the companies offering services as opposed to the more recognizable retail brands seeing these big cuts. Thanks!
That is what I see.
I provide services for oil/gas companies. While I work in oil/gas/petrochem, I never work directly for a owner. I always work for a company that the owner hires for the project, then moves on to the next project. Sometimes that is the same owner, often it is not.
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