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.
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Yeah, that’s all of the outfits in the GOM…
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Meanwhile they travel by company jet and pay millions to politicians to maintain the status quo, keep the unions out etc. It’s been the same story since they converted the the first shrimp boat to an OSV. Gotta admire the bayou companies though as they have been screwing over the folks in the bayou for decades while convincing them they were their friend. Past history: Chouest had a matching 401k program so the employees contributed thinking they would have their contributions matched. Wrong, the employees didn’t read the fine print and after the employees had contributed for a year Chouest decided they would not match because…they hadn’t made enough money even though they were jetting all over going deep sea fishing.
Really savvy companies have been screwing really gullible people in the bayou for many, many years.
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Is there ANYTHING that can’t be blamed on Trump? I am not defending Trump, just saying there does not appear to be any topic anywhere that doesn’t contain “Trump’s fault”?
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This is a fascinating subject that is near and dear to my heart. I keep hearing about lack of skilled labor issues across all industries, no one wants to work, etc etc etc. Here’s the thing about the oil industry - during the last, huge downturn not only did we get laid off, but, in some cases (Rowan, TOI, SeaDrill - to name a few) people were called back to work, only to be told they have to give back their severance, to get paid less, and then get laid off again, only this time no severance - in some cases there were folks I worked with while working the temp job stuff where this happened no less than four times. THEN, during COVID, when the Russians and Saudis pulled their little stunt, not only did the oil companies knee jerk their way out of current contract, drilling companies were quick to lay off what was left of their experienced man power, only to have prices go back to normal within a relatively short time. Now drilling companies are desperate to get skilled labor, and there were a whole lot of people who passed this time. But if you got laid off in your 50’s, you were absolutely screwed, regardless of any industry. No one wants you. So there are a whole lot of underemployed or unemployed in their 50’s (particularly white males) currently, who would take an entry level position right now if offered…but the hiring process in this country is so broken that it’s a bit like (or exactly like) internet dating. Now, understand I lucked out as a white female in my 50’s by managing to find a company so understaffed that I could make a huge career transition in a land locked state with in 6 months of walking away from the offshore drilling industry. I’m the outlier. So these companies have themselves to blame. Uneducated all this skilled labor from the drilling industry may be, but alot of them (those that I knew from the GOM, anyway) are now self employed and have absolutely no intention of going back, no matter how good the money is. This makes me happy, although I may still have a little bitterness left from getting laid off in 2016…
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Mariners in their 50s, 60s and 70s have no problem getting hired now. Lots of guys being called back out of retirement.