Upstream oil and natural gas-related hiring kept booming in January with the addition of 1,700 jobs to a total of 198,100 statewide.
The Texas Oil & Gas Association, Bureau of Labor Statistics, Texas Workforce Commission and Permian Basin Workforce Board say it was the continuation of a trend that started with the waning of the pandemic.
“Despite economic headwinds, the industry remains invested in ensuring that we not only meet our state’s and nation’s energy needs but that we keep Texas an energy leader,” said TXOGA President Todd Staples from Austin. “Comparatively, January 2023 jobs were up by 24,000 or 13.8 percent over January 2022.
“Since the COVID low point in September 2020, months of increase in upstream oil and gas employment in Texas have outnumbered months of decrease by 25 to 3. Industry has added 41,100 Texas upstream jobs, averaging growth of 1,468 jobs per month,” Staples said. “These jobs pay among the highest wages in Texas with employers paying an average salary of $115,000 in 2022.”
The upstream sector involves oil and natural gas extraction, excluding refining, petrochemicals, fuels wholesaling, oilfield equipment manufacturing, pipelines and gas utilities that support hundreds of thousands of additional jobs.
Permian Basin Workforce Board CEO Willie Taylor said Wednesday that the employment increase “has been here for quite some time with Odessa’s unemployment at 3.7 percent now and Midland’s being the lowest in the state at 2.7.
“It has been a jobseekers’ market out there in all sectors after the recovery from COVID,” he said. “That’s not just in oil and gas but all sectors, health care, automotive, education, transportation and others.”
Taylor said Midland County’s unemployment is lower than Ector County’s because Midland County has a bigger workforce, 113,000 to 86,000, and a greater percentage of energy-related employment, 33 to about 25 percent.
He reported that the jobseekers’ market has powered an increase in wages from 15-25 percent.
Taylor said people who want jobs may contact one of the Workforce Solutions Permian Basin agencies in Odessa, Midland, Big Spring, Fort Stockton or Pecos.
He also suggested that skills may be upgraded at the community colleges.
