Houston

THE promise of plentiful jobs and salaries as high as a quarter-million dollars a year lured Colombia native Clara Correa Zappa and her British husband to Perth, Australia, at the height of the continent's oil-and-gas frenzy.

Engineers were in high demand in 2012, when oil prices exceeded US$100 a barrel, making the move across the world a no-brainer. Within two years, though, oil plunged to less than half the 2012 price and Ms Zappa lost her job as a safety analyst. Now she's worried her husband, who also works in the commodities industry, could also lose his job.