Glut of Unemployed Petroleum Engineers, Geologists Shrinks by 12.5% – Report

June 6, 2018

Houston, Jobs, midland

Oil hiring swells in Texas, U.S. oilpatch

Oil prices reached their highest point since December 2014 and companies in the oil and gas industry are hiring accordingly as activity in the industry picks up.

LinkedIn’s workforce report for June details a year-over-year rise in hiring of 5.2%. The report details the strong correlation between oil prices and hiring within the industry.

Houston saw a 12.4% increase in hiring over the past year.

A good indicator that the industry is stabilizing within Houston is that the surplus of professionals with oil and gas specific skills, such as petroleum engineering and geology, dropped from 16,000 in February 2016, to 14,000 in February 2018, LinkedIn reported.

Another indicator of increasing payrolls is the housing market. Texas housing has felt the full force of the hiring influx, especially in Midland and Odessa—the epicenter of Permian Basin hiring.

A recent report from RentCafe reports the year-over-year rent increase for Midland and Odessa were 35.7% and 38.9% respectively.

Oil Companies are Hiring: Glut of Petroleum Engineers, Geologists Shrinks by 12.5% Since Feb. 2016 - Report — Source: RentCafe

What are the positions and who’s hiring?

A quick check-in with some of the key international job sites shows plenty of opportunity. LinkedIn, Indeed.com, SimplyHired and Monster list large numbers of open jobs in oil and gas.

LinkedIn shows 7,836 oilfield job openings. Indeed.com offers up 6,320 oilfield jobs. SimplyHired lists 3,115 oilfield jobs. Monster.com says it has 1,000+ oilfield jobs posted.

For the petroleum engineer category, LinkedIn lists 238 jobs, Indeed reports 778 jobs in the category; SimplyHired reports 646; Monster reports 232 jobs.

For the category petroleum geologist, LinkedIn lists 8 jobs; Indeed lists 74 job postings; SimplyHired lists 65 open jobs; Monster lists 119 openings.

Companies with open positions listed on the sites include Occidental Petroleum, XTO, Laredo Petroleum, Baker Hughes, Solvay, Department of the Interior, RS Energy, Hilcorp, Saudi Aramco, University of Kansas, Total, Concho, and hundreds more.

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