Halliburton followed up its recent layoff of 350 workers in Duncan, Oklahoma with the layoff of 384 workers at the South San Antonio, Texas facility that oversees the company’s Eagle Ford Shale operations.
Halliburton informed the Texas Workforce Commission on April 7 that it was laying off the workers immediately. The layoffs are expected to be permanent, according to the company. Companies are usually required to give workers a 60-day notice for mass layoffs but can waive the requirement under unforeseeable business circumstances.
The San Antonio office will remain open, the company told the TWC, though it wasn’t immediately clear how many people are still employed there. The layoffs were made due to challenging market conditions, a company spokesperson said, while declining to state the size of the company’s San Antonio workforce according to the San Antonio Business Journal.
Originally in the outlying area of Elmendorf, the location was annexed by the city of San Antonio last year in a deal that cut Halliburton’s property taxes by 62%. In exchange, the company agreed to continue employing at least 200 people in the office and 500 regionally. When striking the deal, the city’s Economic Development Department told the City Council that Halliburton threatened to move its Eagle Ford operations elsewhere without the annexation deal.
The company had not yet received any benefits under the agreement, Alejandra Lopez, San Antonio’s director of economic development, said in a statement.
“In order to be eligible for any future tax benefit, Halliburton would have to be in compliance with all contract requirements,” Lopez said.
The San Antonio layoffs represent a small percentage of the workforce that Halliburton has furloughed or laid off this year in response to falling crude oil prices. In March, the company announced that it was furloughing 3,500 workers from its Houston headquarters for 60 days to reduce costs. It later laid off more than 600 employees in Texas and Oklahoma, as well at 130 in Colorado. Last week, the company announced the permanent layoff of 350 workers at its former national headquarters in Duncan.
Oilfield services companies have been the hardest hit in the current market crash that sent oil futures for May plummeting Monday to below $0 per barrel for the first time in history.
Source: San Antonio Business Journal