Washington policymakers only recently have taken note of the staggering dimensions of the oil industry depression and then only because oil associations have been pointing it out at every opportunity.
Bureau of Labor Statistics data show total oil industry employment has dropped 22%, or 423,006 jobs, between February 1982 and April 1992. The exploration and production sector was hardest hit, dropping 398,000 jobs, or 52%.
Of course, as former oil workers shift to less cyclical employment, their skills and expertise are lost to the industry.
Meanwhile, the Labor Department's trade adjustment assistance (TAA) program is trying to help them along to other careers.
In 1988, Congress expanded existing law to allow a wider range of unemployed oil workers, including those of service and supply firms, to receive extended unemployment benefits under the TAA program.
The theory was that international manipulation of world oil prices had resulted in lower prices, increased imports, and their unemployment.
If TAA program officials certified the unemployed workers as being eligible for benefits, they could receive through their state unemployment agencies extended unemployment benefits, training for a new occupation, cash grants to help them seek jobs in other regions, and if a distant job was obtained even a relocation allowance paving 90% of moving expenses and as much as $800 for associated financial costs.
Marvin Fooks, Labor's director of TAA, said oil industry petitions have dominated the program since 1988.
The oil related cases have ranged from one fourth to one third of the program's workload, hitting 50% on occasions.
Fooks estimates 75,000-100,000 workers at 1,800 locations have been certified as eligible for TAA benefits since 1988.
Total benefits paid to former oil industry workers have been in the tens of millions of dollars, but a precise number isn't available. Oil workers dominate the TAA program in states such as Texas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, and Wyoming.
Oil workers have gone into a wide range of other jobs. Many college educated workers have entered the computer industry, and many roughnecks have been trained as mechanics.
It has been difficult for the TAA program to retrain unemployed persons with very specialized professions, such as petroleum geologists.
Fooks said the Labor Department has found the ex-oilmen to be much less complacent than normal. "The oil workers are very aggressive and very articulate. They want what they want, and they let you know it."
Copyright 1992 Oil & Gas Journal. All Rights Reserved.
