"Never, ever feel sorry for oil and gas companies."
Roger Garbey and Andres Hernandez, from the Goldin Solar company, install a solar panel system on the roof of a home on January 23, 2018 in Palmetto Bay, Florida.
KENNY STANCIL
More than half of workers in the global oil and gas sector say they are interested in pursuing employment in the renewable energy industry—a promising development that comes as experts say the pace of the worldwide transition to clean power must speed up to stave off the worst consequences of the fossil fuel-driven climate crisis.
That's according to a report published Tuesday by the recruitment firm Brunel and Oilandgasjobsearch.com, which includes a survey showing that 56% of fossil fuel workers want to pursue employment in the renewable energy sector, up from 39% last year.
Despite receiving trillions of dollars in subsidies each year, as well as additional bailout money during the Covid-19 pandemic, oil and gas companies responded to the coronavirus-driven decline in demand and prices by firing tens of thousands of workers, rather than furloughing them while production decreased.
Now that demand and prices are on the upswing, many of those same companies are reportedly finding it difficult to rehire the employees they need to increase supply.
According to the survey, 82% of recruiters said that for every 10 job openings, one has remained unfilled for more than three months. Due to a shortage of qualified candidates, 10% of fossil fuel industry employers have had to pay retirees to take open positions.
In response to those figures, Mijin Cha, an assistant professor of Urban and Environmental Policy at Occidental College, encouraged people to "never, ever feel sorry for oil and gas companies."
Despite climate scientists' repeated warnings about the need to keep coal, oil, and gas underground to have a fighting chance of limiting global warming to 1.5ºC above preindustrial levels by the end of the century, fossil fuel corporations are currently planning to expand extraction in wealthy and impoverished nations alike.
Those plans could be hindered if enough oil and gas workers leave the field. "With more workers gravitating towards the renewables sector," said Tuesday's report, "it's likely that the industry will continue to see an exit from those in traditional sectors."
While the Big Oil lobby argues that decarbonization will leave millions of workers unemployed, advocates for a just transition have always emphasized that the shift to a post-carbon economy should be treated as an opportunity to create good-paying jobs that simultaneously reduce greenhouse gas emissions and economic inequality.
A study published earlier this year found that shifting from fossil fuels to renewables would add eight million jobs worldwide, boosting overall employment in the energy sector by more than 40% by 2050. Another recent study confirmed that green public spending yields far more jobs than unsustainable investments.
According to the International Energy Agency, "To reach net-zero emissions by 2050, annual clean energy investment worldwide will need to more than triple by 2030 to around $4 trillion."
Doing so would "create millions of new jobs," said the IEA, and there's plenty of work to be done. Quadrupling global solar power by 2030, for instance, "is equivalent to installing the world's current largest solar park roughly every day" for the rest of this decade.
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Around 43% of oil and gas workers are thinking of leaving the energy industry altogether within the next five years
Dimitris Mavrokefalidis
Thursday 2 December 2021
Image: Shutterstock
Almost 43% of people working in the oil and gas sector consider leaving the energy sector altogether in the next five years.
That’s according to a new survey by recruitment firm Brunel and oilandgasjobsearch.com which shows that oil and gas workers are less confident in finding new employment in the energy industry than those in other sectors.
That compares to nearly 89% of employees in the renewables sector that feel confident they can find another job within the industry.
The Energy Outlook report which accompanies the survey finds that nearly 82% of recruiters said that one in ten of their open positions have been unfilled for more than three months, with drilling, well delivery and geoscience being the most difficult roles to fill.
The research also demonstrates that nearly 10% of employers in the oil and gas sector have had to pay retirees to come back to take unfilled job openings due to skills shortages.
© Reuters / Isaac Urrutia
By Michael Kern for Oilprice.com
The oil and gas industry worldwide faces a talent gap as workers contemplate moving to renewables or leaving the energy industry altogether, a survey by recruitment firm Brunel and Oilandgasjobsearch.com, cited by Reuters, showed.
More than half of workers in oil and gas, 56%, said they would look for employment opportunities in the renewables energy sector, according to the survey. Last year, that percentage was 38.8%, highlighting the shortages the oil industry is facing as it looks to hire again, after letting go in 2020 thousands of workers in oil and gas and related services in the supply chain.
The survey also showed that 43% of workers want out of the energy sector within the next five years.
As more workers look to move to renewables or to ditch the energy sector altogether, recruiters in the oil and gas business find attracting talent with the right skills increasingly difficult.
Labor shortages have already become evident this year in the US shale patch and in the Canadian oil sands as demand recovers and companies put rigs back into operation.
Despite the recent uptick in oil industry employment in the United States, short-term and permanent shifts in workers’ negative perceptions of the sector have already started to create labor shortages. These shortages threaten to delay and even hinder the recovery of US oil production, analysts say. More and more workers are fed up with the boom-and-bust nature of the oil industry after two major oil price and drilling activity collapses in just five years. They vow they will never again be beholden to the volatile oil markets, and have quit the sector entirely after being let go in 2020.
In Canada, the number of total jobs expected is set to rise next year, but labor constraints have already started to impact the members of the Canadian Association of Energy Contractors (CAOEC), the association said last week in an otherwise positive outlook on Canada’s drilling activity for 2022.
What Will Happen To Oil And Gas Workers After The Energy Transition?
- The oil and gas industry was devastated by the pandemic, but the job losses seen over the last two years will pale in comparison to the impact of a global energy transition
- There are over 160,000 oil and gas jobs in the U.S. alone and another 50,000 coal jobs, and each direct job loss in the sector has a huge impact on employment outside the sector
- While some states, such as Colorado, have initiatives designed at transitioning workers into new careers, more help will be needed on both a State and Federal level
The Covid-19 pandemic led to hundreds of thousands of job losses in the global energy sector following months of restrictions that hindered people from getting to work and led to the bankruptcy of many oil and gas firms around the world. However, as the IEA and several governments push for a green energy transition, this could be the tip of the iceberg when it comes to job losses. If that is the case, then the industry desperately needs clear policies to be put in place to ensure job creation and training for the millions that stand to lose their professions.
Following the COP26 summit at the beginning of November, attended by some of the most important world leaders and environmental actors, it was widely agreed that the world must undergo an energy transition, moving away from fossil fuels to renewable alternatives. But shifting from the world’s principal energy sources also means abandoning huge infrastructures and cutting millions of jobs, unless a plan is established to repurpose energy structures and transition workers.
An estimated 400,000 jobs were cut across the energy sector in 2020, with half of those in the U.S. alone. Some of the most stable supermajors were forced to cut jobs, with Exxon reducing its workforce by 15%, around 14,000 employees, not to mention the smaller firms that were forced into bankruptcy. Now, with the energy transition, the oil sector is expected to contract further, around 20 percent over the next decade and by 95 percent between 2031 and 2050.
But as coal plants in the U.S. and Europe are already shutting down at an increasing rate, it is clear that the job losses of the last year are not over yet. Coal plants are closing ahead of schedule, as major economies pledge to cut carbon at a faster rate than originally planned, starting with the dirtiest fossil fuel. The U.K. government is now planning to completely end coal production by 2024, a year earlier than originally planned. And coal plants across the U.S. are undergoing the same transition, with a coal plant outside Nucla, Colorado closing three years earlier than planned.
While this is good news for the environment, as carbon emissions are being lowered, it could spell disaster for many communities that continue to rely on jobs in the energy sector. As well as job losses, several towns and cities situated near fossil fuel production sites can expect a huge loss in revenues unless something is done to support local economies during the green transition.
In the case of Nucla, unemployment in the small town doubled overnight. And this could be the case for several other towns, with over two dozen coal plants expected to close across the U.S. over the next decade. However, some point out the huge potential for these locations to build upon existing energy infrastructure so it doesn’t go to waste, putting railroads and transmission lines to use as well as supporting the local job market.
The U.S., in particular, has extensive experience in dealing with job cuts due to the overreliance on specific industries, such as steel and timber, but perhaps none so big as fossil fuels. There are around 160,000 jobs across the U.S. oil and gas extraction sector, and 50,000 jobs in coal, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, but this is just the tip of the iceberg considering the multitude of indirectly related jobs. For every one job cut in power plants or mining, it is estimated that another four indirect jobs are lost.
Initiatives such as the Colorado Just Transition Action Plan, established in 2020 to support workers in the transition away from the state’s coal production, could help communities to become less reliant on boom-bust cycles. Other states across the U.S. are drafting similar strategies to ensure that they are not left behind as fossil fuel production dries up. But this will require significant funding and policy support from the federal level considering how many jobs are at risk.
Not to forget, many of those employed in the energy sector are the backbone of American industry, whose political support should not be overlooked going into future elections. If left behind, the government could lose a significant voter population from fossil fuel-reliant towns and cities across the country.
In addition, many of the workers employed in oil and gas are reluctant to transition to jobs in renewables, which would require more training and may offer lower-paid positions, adding an obstacle to the energy-related unemployment mitigation policy.
But, optimistically, we’re already seeing an increase in the number of jobs in green energy, with renewable energy jobs reaching 12 million globally according to ILO data. This is an increase from 11.5 million in 2019. The majority of these jobs are in China, holding around a 39 percent share, followed by Brazil, India, the United States, and countries within the European Union.
As a clean energy transition is finally underway, after years of stalling, the environment is not the only concern that world leaders must face. With millions of fossil fuel-related jobs at risk at the global level, governments must start implementing clear transition strategies to ensure there are training programs and new job opportunities in place for this huge population that will otherwise end up unemployed.
By Felicity Bradstock for Oilprice.com
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