We get a lot of reports touting the job creation factor in the oil and gas industry, and a nugget from October's Energy Stat of the Week report from analysts at Raymond James stood out.
The analysts crunched the numbers, and between 2005 and 2012 almost 90 percent of the job growth in Pennsylvania at that time came from oil and gas jobs in the upstream and midstream.
That’s the highest percentage of any state, according to analysts Pavel Molchanov and J. Marshall Adkins, who based the math off data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Behind Pennsylvania, the next highest percentages were Louisiana and New Mexico at about 70 percent.
According to the Pennsylvania Department of Labor and Industry's latest data, statewide hires in core Marcellus Shale industries were up 35 percent in the second quarter of 2013 compared to the second quarter of 2010. However, the growth is lower when comparing second quarter 2012 to second quarter 2013, with an increase of just 2.2 percent.
Statewide, new hires across all industries was up 8.7 percent between the second quarter of 2012 and the second quarter of 2013, according to the Department of Labor and Industry.
The Raymond James analysts looked at the BLS as well as a September analysis from IHS Inc. that had some pretty significant job numbers for oil and gas. The Raymond James folks noted the IHS predictions can be somewhat fuzzy, particularly when looking at indirect and induced jobs. IHS estimates that total jobs — direct, indirect and induced — will hit 3 million by 2020. Though these numbers can be fungible, the Raymond James analysts had this point:
“While it goes without saying that ultra-long term forecasts, such as what IHS published, are more interesting from an academic standpoint than a practical one, the key message we want to convey is that unconventional oil and gas is not just a flash in the pan. This is poised to be a major source of jobs growth for the U.S. economy over the long run, although it’s by no means a panacea to the problem of structural unemployment.”
This article was initially posted by bizjournals.com
