WSJ: Oil Jobs Squeezed as Prices Plummet

Markets wax and wane; jobs inflate and go away.

2 Buck Chuck now works a second job at the corner gas station.

Oh, have you noticed that gas prices have plummeted? 

The biggest reason for that is Saudi Arabia decided to open the spigots and flood oil into the world market.

Why did they do that?  To punish bad Iran and bad boy Putin in Russia - and send a message everywhere else including the American heartland.

But, as oil prices plummet, so will the jobs in the oil industry.

As those jobs decline, will the media continue to celebrate this underachieving economy that punishes the middle class job seeker?

You decide!  See the comment below: "People will quit making $150,000 a year for $25,000-a-year skills."  PB
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From the Wall Street Journal online:

U.S. oil and gas companies have been an engine of growth through much of an otherwise lackluster economic expansion, providing steady employment, solid wages and fierce competition for workers across wide swaths of the country.

Now, after a roughly 50% plunge in oil prices, exploration and production companies are cutting capital budgets, service companies are weighing layoffs and non-energy firms that popped up to support the industry are bracing for a protracted slowdown.

One company caught in the industry downturn is Hercules Offshore Inc.

The Houston-based firm is laying off 324 employees, roughly 15% of its workforce, because oil companies aren’t renewing contracts for its offshore drilling rigs in the Gulf of Mexico while crude prices are depressed.

“It’s been breathtaking,” said Jim Noe, executive vice president of Hercules, which was founded in 2004.

“We’ve never seen this glut of supply and dislocation in oil markets. So we’re not surprised to see a significant decline in demand for our services.”

...Some service companies are trying to find a silver lining in what could be a slowdown in activity and softening of the labor market.

Indeed, companies in the oil and gas industry for years have lamented the difficulty of finding skilled workers, rising wages and short tenure of many employees who are quick to hop between firms.

“In my opinion, in a way it’s good because it will get the companies more efficient,” said Tyler Goodman, president of Borsheim Crane Service, of Williston, N.D.

“Having to do everything yesterday costs a lot of money. People will quit making $150,000 a year for $25,000-a-year skills.”
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Link: http://www.wsj.com/articles/job-engine-running-low-on-gas-as-energy-costs-tumble-1419619419