Oil sector crashes and jobs market follows: 100 thousand layoffs
New York (AsiaNews) - The collapse of oil prices - which have halved in two years - has had a devastating knock on effect on the labor market connected to the energy sector. According to Swift Worldwide Resources, over 100 thousand jobs have vanished since 2012. And the outlook is even more bleak: from $ 48.84 US a barrel, the current price, crude oil could fall further by April 2015. Political scandals and wars steeped in terrorism in the producing countries give little hope for a short term solution.
Tobias Read, chief executive of Swift, told the Bloomberg
agency: " The issue is one of uncertainty, of whether there's a job out
there. For seven years, there was a shortage of staff. Now for the first time,
there's a surplus.
Currently almost no one is hiring". The center of the crisis is certainly
America, where the collapse has caused the most damage, but also in the rest of
the world the industry is suffering. Ironically, the analysts write, a job in
this sector was always "considered safe and high income".
I dirigenti delle
maggiori compagnie petrolifere non sembrano sperare nel futuro. I vertici di BP
Plc e Royal Dutch Shell hanno già annunciato tagli per 40 miliardi di dollari e
hanno annunciato agli investitori di "essere pronti" a fare ancora di
più. Il Paese più colpito sembra l'Australia, con una forza lavoro già decimata
dal crollo dell'industria mineraria carbonifera. Un totale di 70 miliardi di
dollari già in rotta verso il Paese, destinati alla costruzione di impianti di
estrazione di gas naturali, è stato bloccato o rimandato.
The executives of the major oil companies seem to have
little hope for the future. BP Plc and Royal Dutch Shell have already announced
cuts to the tune of $ 40 billion and announced to investors they "are
ready" to cut even more. The most affected country is Australia, with a
workforce already decimated by the collapse of the coal mining industry. A
total of $ 70 billion already en route to the country, for the construction of
facilities for the extraction of natural gas, has been blocked or delayed.
Brazil's bribes scandal
that hit the CEO of the state Petroleo Brasileiro is halting development
projects in Macae, a city of 230,000 northeast of Rio de Janeiro. International
schools have closed as workers were sent to other regions, and oil royalties to
the city this year may be cut in half.
The underlying causes of the collapse in oil prices are not yet clear, and certainly divide international analysts. Goldman Sachs yesterday published a report in which it argues that the free fall in oil prices can be attributed to the abundance of crude oil on the market. The massive surplus registered in the second half of 2014 shocked the industry and delivering a final blow. For the US group's analysts " the new equilibrium price of oil will likely be much lower than over the past decade".
Others argue that the problem stems from the decisions of OPEC, an organization that brings together some of the largest producers of crude oil. During the OPEC summit in November 2014, Saudi Arabia and its main ally, the United Arab Emirates, pressured the decision to leave production unchanged, triggering the collapse of prices that has shook the markets in recent months.
Riyadh's aim, according to most analysts, is to undermine the dominance of US shale oil producers, to protect its shares on the American market. The extraction of unconventional hydrocarbons requires investments that are likely to become inconsistent with a barrel below $ 50. The Persian Gulf producers, having a much lower break-even point, however can withstand an even more serious drop in prices.
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