For years, as oil and gas companies increased production, they hired many workers, enriching communities across the United States. That is no longer true. The country is pumping more oil than ever and near-record amounts of gas. But the companies that extract, transport, and process these fossil fuels employ roughly 25% fewer workers than they did a decade earlier, when they were producing less fuel, according to a New York Times analysis of federal data.
The country is experiencing an oversupply of oil, and producers are tightening their belts, with spending across North America expected to fall 3% this year, according to Barclays. This raises the specter of further job losses, even as President-elect Donald J. Trump urges companies to “drill, baby, drill.”
Oil prices have risen in recent days after President Biden announced new sanctions on Russia’s oil industry, but it’s not clear how those restrictions may affect commodity prices and US producers in the long run.
The thinning out of American oil and gas jobs is reminiscent of the long decline of the US coal industry, where employment peaked decades before production fell as mining companies extracted more rocks with fewer people.
Two decades into the shale boom, companies are drilling wells that extend deeper into the earth, unlocking more oil and natural gas. New technology is letting them oversee drilling, fracking, and production from afar, with fewer people on-site. And larger companies are snapping up smaller players, shedding accountants, engineers, and other workers as they go.
While the total number of jobs has increased from the bleakest days of the pandemic, far fewer people are working in the industry than before Covid.
Among the cost-cutting techniques being pursued by ExxonMobil and Chevron are hiring engineers and geologists in India, where labor is cheaper, to support activities in the United States and elsewhere.
The decline in oil and gas work also reflects the continuing transition to cleaner forms of energy, even if that shift is happening more slowly than many analysts had anticipated a few years ago.
“You won’t see a lot of job growth in just the basic act of producing oil and natural gas,” said Chris Wright, chief executive of the oil field services company Liberty Energy.
The industry is “on a trend now of flat to maybe gradually declining employment.”
President Trump will “protect our energy jobs” while lowering costs for consumers, said Karoline Leavitt, a spokeswoman for the president-elect’s transition team.
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