In a biennial international survey hosted by www.OilandGasJobSearch.com and supported by NES Global Talent, data showed that all areas of the oil and gas employment industry have been growing positively since the last one that 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 business performance measures have grown faster than the last time employers were surveyed.
Over the past 12 months, about 45 per cent of oil and gas workers have received salary increases 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 a drastic jump across the board:
One area the industry could look to help close the gap is by employing more women in roles across the sector. There are currently very few women working in the field of engineering, the good news is that more women responded to the survey than ever before and the statistics show that this is an area that is undoubtedly going in the right direction as the industry is looking to modernise and embrace new working practices, the survey revealed.
Alex Fourlis, UK managing director of Careerbuilder, said, “Companies are hiring again, salaries are finally growing, and the number of projects is increasing around the globe. Overall, the market is looking very positive for the 12 months ahead, and there hasn’t been a better time to join the industry.”
