Interesting article in Oil Price that laments the lack of skilled workers in land based drilling and I think this correlates well with the same problem in the marine industry. Luckily the international marine industry can draw skilled workers from many countries but the ones who are restricted due to cabotage laws may need to do some serious recruiting and PR to attract workers.
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Lack of skilled workers is a nationwide issue in every industry.
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It doesn’t help that Trump has repeatedly crashed the US oil drilling industry and chased out most of the skilled workers via layoffs. Manny are now gun shy and don’t want to return.
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I disagree. Many of the workers had no legal papers to work. That is the fault of their employers who could have gone thru the hoops to hire them legally. They were looking for cheap labor. Now they have to compete with others looking for skilled electricians etc. Pay enough and they will come.
Many US Oil Field workers were here illegally? Really?
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“The Permian Can’t Scale If No One’s Willing To Invest In People”
Fixed it for them.
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For many years Blue Collar workers in the U.S. have been disparaged and shit on.
Kids are taught that to be successful they need a degree, any degree.
Members of the MEBA, MMP, and AMO are both victims and perpetrators of this.
Then, in the offshore industry the problems only get worse.
Most people in the U.S. have no idea what the merchant marine is or how dependent they are on us.
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Anyone who worked in or kept up with the Oil & Gas Industry knows no party has a monopoly on being in office when it crashes. No point making political arguments over the moratorium, the global '15 crash, Covid etc. Seasoned O&G workers should be used to the ups and downs by now.
But I would like to say this, from my experiences in the Oil & Gas sector, there seemed to me to be more unskilled labor compared to skilled & college educated. Roustabouts were a dime a dozen, motormen were former roustabouts who were around a little bit long & same for the crane operators. Unfortunately, the catering crew were usually a good bunch of former criminals trying to get their lives straight. I found many in the O&G sector had no skills except O&G work. The welders, electricians, mariners etc. were skilled/licensed professionals but many of them can jump in & out of O&G sector with the ups and downs.
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It’s not just a matter of who was in office. Trump’s policies have directly caused multiple crashes in the US oil drilling economy both last term and already this term.
With the coming of AI skilled trade workers will be much more sought after than white collar workers. However, some skilled trades now require a two year post secondary school education.
That is part of the problem
People think skilled trades are easy.
Often they have no clue how much training and experience are required.
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I don’t have many academic credentials but, regardless of industry, I’m always surprised at how many people are shocked that low pay, poor working conditions, and little/no employer sponsored training results in challenges in recruiting a skilled/semi-skilled workforce.
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The oil drilling business has been a feast or famine business since its inception. The companies have also been anti-union in the extreme. So most employees know what they are getting into. Eventually the oil companies jack up pay enough to attract workers only to lay them off in a couple of years. The qualified workers caught on to this and since they are in demand in more stable industries they have gotten smart and turning down the big pay knowing it is just temporary.
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I work in GOM oil and gas. If the boat operators don’t give annual raises to keep skilled people, you will have a shortage of skilled labor.
The outfit I work for does not give raises until they can’t crew the boats or a union tries to organize.
Yeah, that’s all of the outfits in the GOM…