100,000 lay-offs so far in the oil industry and counting
But there is a danger in companies cutting too deep, say industry recruiters.
THIS time a year ago, the oil industry's biggest problem was finding a way to deal with the "retirement tsunami" about to crash down on it as older oilfield workers hung up their cork boots to enjoy freedom - 55. Now, with oil prices still in the doldrums, many of those same workers are lucky to be hanging onto their jobs, while others have been booted from the payroll as an ugly wave of lay-offs takes hold.
One of the worst-affected areas is the Canadian oil sands, where a higher per-barrel cost of production than conventional sources has oil companies scrambling to cut capital expenditures and in several cases, put long-term projects on ice.
On Thursday, one of the region's big players, Husky Energy, announced that about 1,000 construction workers employed by a contractor at its Sunrise oilsands project would be issued pink slips. The bad news for the workers came a day after Husky said that it had started to produce from the US$3.2 billion, steam-assisted gravity drainage (SAGD) Sunrise operation, which it co-owns with BP.
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