2019 is looking very healthy for employment within the international oil and gas industry
Employment in the oil and gas industry is looking very positive for 2019. In a biennial international survey hosted by www.OilandGasJobSearch.com and supported by NES Global Talent, the data proved that all areas of the oil and gas employment industry were positively on the increase since the last one took place in 2017.
The 2019 Outlook survey found that the industry is in vibrant good health. The size of the global workforce has increased in the past 12 months, as well as the annual salaries. Both of these measures of business performance have increased faster than the last time the employers were surveyed.
45% of oil and gas workers have received salary increases in the past 12 months, and based on the current market, more than three quarters of bosses expect salaries to grow in the year ahead, up from two-thirds in 2017.
With the positive results in mind, both employers and employees feel that the international growth prospects for jobs and salaries will continue to improve more quickly during the year ahead. There are also signs of greater fluidity and flexibility in the market than ever before.
Despite these positive trends, the oil and gas industry is facing another challenge and although there is a larger, more confident, and better-paid workforce, there are a few skill shortages across the board, particularly in engineering and design, operations, maintenance, and production areas and the industry is urging for these skill gaps to be filled in. Many businesses across the globe are taking active steps to address these skill shortages and to move forward in a positive way to help the industry, especially by investing more money into training and development.
However, employees do feel confident that they will be able to find new jobs within the industry and command higher salaries in the year ahead due to the skills shortages. The below table shows areas where employers feel skills shortages are impacting productivity in 2017 versus 2019, and there has been drastic jumps across the board:
| INDUSTRY SECTOR |
2017 |
2019 |
| Engineering and design |
15% |
37% |
| Operations / maintenance / production |
20% |
32% |
| Business development |
13% |
26% |
| Project controls |
5% |
23% |
| Construction / subsea / pipelines |
9% |
21% |
| Drilling and well delivery |
7% |
21% |
| HSE / QC QA |
6% |
19% |
| Geoscience and petroleum engineering |
3% |
15% |
| Petrochemicals |
2% |
15% |
| Supply chain / procurement / purchasing |
4% |
15% |
| Support functions (e.g. HR, finance, IT) |
2% |
10% |
One area that the industry could look towards, to help to close the gap is through employing more women in to roles across the sector. Currently, there are very few women working in the field or in engineering, the good news is that more women answered the survey than ever before and the stats show that this is an area which is certainly going in the right direction, as the industry looks to modernise and embrace new working practices.
Alex Fourlis, UK Managing Director of CareerBuilder says “Companies are hiring again, salaries are finally growing and number of projects are increasing around the globe. Overall, the market is looking very positive for the 12 months ahead, there hasn’t been a better time to join the industry.”
