Facing Job Insecurity In Oil And Gas Industry

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News and media channels have lately been splashing figures of layoff estimates in various oil and gas companies; layoffs already happened or likely to happen. But are oil and gas companies really getting impacted because of this? Are employees or aspirants really facing a job insecurity in oil jobs?

One of the Wall Street Journal news blogs mentions of a survey made by an outplacement firm:

“Layoffs are also hitting industries related to oil, such as their suppliers in manufacturing. The firm said layoff announcements in January totaled about 53,000 jobs and estimated 40% of the losses were oil-related. But in an economy of nearly 150 million workers that has added more than 3 million payroll jobs in the last year alone, the losses are small. Real, but small.”

This definitely shows that the impact is not as bad as people think. If you try and get an overall picture of the job scene, the recession has not impacted the employees in a big way. Companies are still continuing to hire and look for oil and gas aspirants.

The key however for any employee or aspirants in oil and gas industry is to keep themselves at par with the latest technologies and skills pertaining to the industry. Thinking from the company’s perspective, imagine 100 employees need to be laid off out of 1000 employees. Will you be among the 900 or among the 100? Companies today want to retain employees who are going that ‘extra mile’ and making a difference to themselves and the company, rather than the ones who don’t.

Exploring other opportunities within your company where you can make a difference and contribute, not only to boost your oil career and also result in company’s decision-making while it decides to shuffle people from team to another or layoff.