For the second consecutive week, job losses in mining employment—that’s the category that includes many oil and gas exploration and extraction jobs—have slipped below 100 in Louisiana.
As The Advertiser reports, a leading Louisiana economist suggested today that the worst might be over for oil and gas job losses in the state.
The Louisiana Workforce Commission announced today that for the week ending June 20, 55 initial claims for unemployment compensation were made by workers in mining positions. On June 13, 95 initial claims for jobless benefits were made from workers classified as working in mining.
Those marked the first weeks since January that unemployment compensation claims have fallen below 100 for a single week in mining jobs. Forty workers in mining initially sought jobless benefits from the state in the week ending Jan. 3.
Baton Rouge economist Loren Scott says job losses are stabilizing in the oil and gas industry as rig counts stabilize, the effect of oil prices rising from the mid-$40-per-barrel range to around $60 a barrel. Oil prices remain substantially below the $100-a-barrel range the industry enjoyed last summer, but prices have enjoyed a “significant upper bump.”
“The biggest part of layoffs has taken place,” Scott says. “Rig counts are creeping up, which will mean more folks on rigs.”
Baker Hughes’ industry rig count rig count released today shows Louisiana’s count rose by six on the week to 75. That was tops among all major oil- and gas-producing states. The U.S. oil and gas rig count increased by two this week to 859. The number of rigs searching solely for oil, however, declined for the 29th consecutive week to 628.
LWC says that while initial claims for oil and gas mining jobs fell, others employed in oil and gas services are spread over other various sectors of employment, making it difficult to determine how many oil and gas related jobs have been lost.
Scott notes that oil and gas jobs also generate jobs elsewhere in the economy. The multiplier effect, he says, is more than four—that is, an oil and gas job encourages four jobs elsewhere. But when an economy suffers oil and gas jobs losses, effects are felt elsewhere. Those effects, he says, oftentimes can be felt in sales tax collections, as laid off oil and gas workers slow their spending.
