February 6, 2018

According to the Texas Workforce Commission, Texas upstream oil and gas employment activities hit 235,300 jobs in December 2017.

Data from the Texas Workforce Commission shows that after fourteen months of expansion, employment in oil and gas extraction and supporting activities fell by 500 jobs in December of 2017. September 2016 employment was the low point, at 202,800, and jobs had been increasing each month since, until December of 2017. At 500 jobs, or 0.2%, this is essentially data noise. It is possible that it will be revised at some point in the future, and because this data is not seasonally adjusted, could simply reflect December factors such as the ice storms and holidays not worked. December’s decline is compared to November’s employment level.

Since the low point in 2016, the job count in the upstream sector has grown 32,500, which pays among the highest wages in Texas.

Oil and gas extraction is upstream activity, meaning that it excludes other sectors in the industry such as refining, petrochemicals, fuels wholesaling, oilfield equipment manufacturing, pipelines, and gas utilities. The employment shown also includes “Support Activities for Mining”, which is mostly oil and gas-related but includes some small amount of other types of mining, also.

Of the 108,000 jobs lost from the peak of December of 2014 to the low point in September of 2016, we have now recovered 30% of the jobs in just over a year, a solid recovery.

NOTE: The underlying data series, Current Employment Statistics (CES), is subjected to frequent re-estimates over time.