US oilfield service jobs continue to fall

Kay Cashman

Petroleum News

While the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics shows the country’s economy added 1.8 million jobs in July, a Petroleum Equipment and Services Association report found that employment in the oilfield services and equipment sector fell by more than 9,300 jobs in July.

PESA’s report said the sector shed 9,344 jobs, 43% more than it lost in June.

The industry-funded trade group said the July numbers pushed the industry’s total U.S. job casualties since the pandemic began to 99,253.

Texas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Colorado, New Mexico, California and Pennsylvania were the hardest hit for oilfield service job cuts.

Alaska numbers did not appear in the report, being lower than that of Pennsylvania, although a Petroleum News query to PESA communications and research director Kevin Broom yielded this rough approximation: “My estimate is that Alaska has lost approximately 1,652 OFS jobs since last year. I estimate that 1,387 are due to the pandemic.”

PESA’s report, which crunched BLS data with help from researchers at the University of Houston’s Hobby School of Public Affairs, estimates oilfield service jobs in the U.S. dropped from 764,189 in February to 664,936 in July, a decline of 13%. Losses were heaviest in April, totaling 59,306 jobs - the largest one-month hit since at least 2013.

PESA analysis of Small Business Administration data found that approximately 180,000 oilfield service jobs have been supported by loans from the Paycheck Protection Program

“Industry analysts anticipate additional job losses as the pandemic continues and jobs supported by emergency measures such as the Paycheck Protection Program are threatened by congressional inaction,” the report said. “Additionally, rising infection rates may depress economic activity as communities resume quarantines.”

- Kay Cashman