Workforce shortage poised to pound energy industry

To highlight the major shortage of skilled workers the energy industry faces in the coming decade, Daniel Lumma, senior vice president of Kiewit Oil, Gas and Chemical North America in Houston, points to Lake Charles. Major gas-to-liquids projects worth billions of dollars announced in recent years are projected to create thousands of jobs. But, as Lumma told members of the American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers at its annual meeting in Houston on Tuesday, filling those jobs is going to a nearly insurmountable challenge. “If all of those projects happen, the peak workforce would have to multiply five to six times above what it is right now,” Lumma says. “The fact is, that’s not going to happen. We’re heading into a very, very significant demographic issue.” There are about 4.5 million to 5 million skilled trade workers in the oil and gas industry in North America, and that’s down about a million from the mid-2000s, The Houston Chronicle reports. Another statistic Lumma deems “scary” is that in 10 years, about half of the industry’s skilled trades workers will have retired. All this is occurring as mega-projects are under way or on the drawing board—including multiple LNG projects in Louisiana. Read the full story here.