Revised employment numbers from the federal government indicate the state of Texas lost more oil and gas jobs than first reported.
A report by the Texas Alliance of Energy Producers stated that about 60,000 oil drilling, production and services workers ended up on the unemployment lines between February and August. That’s 20% higher than the original estimate of 50,000 oil and gas workers.
The figures were based on updated employment estimates from the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas.
The Alliance stated that the headline industry employment data is only updated and revised once a year. But it also showed the loss of nearly 70,000 oil and gas jobs from December 2018 through August of this year.
So the loss could also be much deeper, according to the Alliance which suggests it might be closer to more than 80,000 jobs lost during the same time period.
“The revised employment estimates clearly suggest that COVID-19 has cut into the upstream oil and gas sector to a deeper extent than previously thought – and those numbers were bad enough to begin with,” said Karr Ingham, Petroleum Economist for the Texas Alliance of Energy Producers and the creator of the Alliance Texas Petro Index (TPI). “More than 35 percent of all upstream jobs were lost in a 20-month period from December 2018 to August 2020. Most of that occurred in 2020, with the industry shedding nearly 30 percent of upstream oil and gas jobs just between February and August of this year.”
Ingham also said the state will have a “long climb back” if it ever hopes to return to the pre-downturn levels of late 2018.
Source: Texas Alliance of Energy Producers