Oil companies scramble to find workers despite boom

I am sick of hearing about labor supply problems in the hydrocarbon industry as it is a problem entirely of their own making. I was in the Industry for 12 years and in that time the industry laid off something like 40% of the workforce twice.

Half of my ex colleagues had to drive Uber to make ends meet for years. I remember a reservoir engineer walking down the main street in the oil city I worked in with a board saying "qualified petroleum engineer will work cheap".

I spent 4 years (and $$$) doing a master's of petroleum engineering whilst working full time. None of the 40 odd students I went through the degree with got jobs due to an industry downturn and all left the industry. We happened to graduate during a low oil price period. Too bad. So sad. 4 year degree down the drain.

This affliction of no staff happens every boom, and the mass layoffs and industry exodus happens every bust. If the industry actually planned for this cyclical nature by avoiding overexpansion in good times and reducing mass layoffs in bad times this wouldn't be an issue.

If oil workers are essentially contractors in unpleasant environments then they should be paid appropriately, i.e. so highly that they can cover the off years with the good years, pay for their own insurance, and foster other lines of business for their downtime and for future career, etc. The era is now over of masses of cheap labor you can always draw on when needed.

My friend signed up for the oil fields back in mid 2000s. Pay was good, but they eventually got to a point where they didn’t need the extra prod and laid him and a bunch off. Might be a contributor to their current problem.

It's hard, dangerous, unpleasant work. And you have to live in small towns where the oil boom has raised the cost of living crazy high. And it's cyclical -- you might make $200k with a high school diploma this year, but in 2 years you'll be unemployed again.

I recall back in the previous boom of 2006-2007 they were paying high school graduates $200k to work in the fields. They would even fly you in and you work a few days then fly you out.

I wonder if salaries have changed since then.

It’s funny how commercial companies in competitive markets doesn’t understand that the job market is a competitive market too. So they need to compete against other companies to get workers. Instead they throw up their hands, making claims about people being lazy or whatever nonsense. Or they demand that the government does whatever it can to make life as miserable as possible for potential workers so that they have no choice but to accept whatever slave conditions the companies offer. That’s why companies in the US fight universal healthcare tooth and nail. Because universal healthcare will make workers less dependent on the mercy of companies.

> average hourly wages in the U.S. oil and gas extraction industry are still below pre-pandemic levels

> We're competing against Amazon hiring drivers

Nobody wants to work* now amirite??

*Nobody wants to work at your shitty oil rig in the middle of the ocean for peanuts

Under-staffing, flexibilisation, wage stagnation, dodging benefits, there's no limit to what employers have asked of workers in this age of globalization.

It has turned the relation to no longer be mutually beneficial, instead entirely asymmetrical. And all this while we're still expected to nod and be "loyal". After all, where else might we go? That question has been the basis for the abuse.

But there's a new answer now. We do go. And don't come back. Poetic justice. Make good use of it.

I worked in oil and gas, in 2021 I quit after company started laying people off. Not ever considering going back. This industry is way too temperamental.

All of the comments here are are exactly correct and how things should work in a free market. Dangerous work? Unpleasant circumstances? Boom and bust cycles? Excellent - pay should be stellar. I don’t care about owners bitching and moaning. This is capitalism and if they need labor then pay up.

every employment sector in the USA seems to attract intermediaries as fast or faster than the new workers.. the more imbalance or imperfect information, the more aggressive the intermediaries get in requirements, fees, conditions, oversight, control of recourse, control of information, access to new details, and more

A climate change fighting strategy I've casually advocated for the last few years is every American with a documented history of wages from fossil fuel production gets $100k spot bonus for signing a contract that forbids them from working in that field again. It should be government policy that the oil, gas, and coal industry cannot find labor.