Halliburton layoffs to have minor impact on Oklahoma jobless rate

Halliburton’s layoff of an estimated 800 workers sounds like a lot but one official in Oklahoma says it will likely have only a minor impact on the state’s jobless rate.

“While the layoff is of course a significant blow to the families and local communities involved an increase of unemployment of 800 would have a very limited impact on the statewide unemployment rate.,” said Lynn Gray, Director of Economic Research and Analysis for the Oklahoma Employment Security Commission.

In an email response to OK Energy Today, Gray also offered, “This of course doesn’t consider the multiplier impact of reduced business and consumer spending that will play out over the next several months.”

Oklahoma had an estimated 60,713 unemployed individuals in October. If indeed 800 workers were let go as announced by Halliburton, the new number of unemployed would be 61,513.

Gray explained the potential impact on the statewide rate would figure to be 3.318% or 3.3% as the official statistic. It would be based on the number of unemployed out of the workforce of 8,853,560.

“The impact on the unemployment rate for the county and OKC MSA would be larger of course,” added Gray. “For perspective between Sept and Oct the number of unemployed in state increased by 1,122 and during the most recent 12 month period the estimate was up by 3,812.”