Thread regarding Halliburton Co. layoffs

You are so right

CLAYTON HOMES IS HIRING

If you have a skill that is useful in another industry you should go now.
If you work in an area (Middle East) with low cost oil and gas you can wait for it to turn around.
In USA consumers will tend to buy cheaper imported oil rather than more expensive American oil. Middle East oil is profitable at $10.

Why do you dream of $100/bbl oil? That was a freak phenomena due to the 2nd Gulf War! It was not due to typical economic market forces and was not sustainable. There was a gnashing of teeth back in 86 when oil < $8/bbl cause a huge shut-in of land based wells that only recovered recently, relatively speaking. And many of those existing wells could not be reopened, due to phenomena that occurs when you close off a well and cement it. The oil/gas industry price/profit is a wave function that appears to have a higher periodicity to it. This is not due to "electric" vehicles or solar power, but due to speculation and market manipulation.

We have already laid off 5,000 people this year. We had 55,000 in January according to Q4 2019 filings. In this most recent meeting for Q1 2020 we had 50,000. A 20% reduction from January numbers would imply 11,000 people gone. That is in line with what happened in 2015 and what will happen this time. That means we are half way done with layoffs. Another 6,000 to go.

Do you worry about getting k–led by a car every day when you drive? Or struck by lightening? No? it’s because you can’t control it. Same thing here. Other than being a lazy worker or a hard worker you can’t control whether Halliburton decides to keep you. Worrying just gives you the sh–es in your shorts.

Customers are demanding cheaper service and the services companies will provide it to them through automation and technology. Even if the production comes back the head count will never be the same as what it was a few years ago. Anyone who doesn't have one foot in the job market and an update resume close at hand all the time is a fool. Good luck.

5,000 employees is the target

Opinion: oil and gas (as a source of energy) is in a death spiral. How long it will take, I don’t know. But the downturns have become increasingly frequent and, most importantly, the lows are getting lower but the highs are not getting higher or even reaching their previous high. We went from $100/bbl to $70/bbl being the goal that wasn’t met to $50/bbl is the new normal, etc..

This cycle, like the ones over the past 10 years will see attractive prices for consumers drive up demand (for a time) but the higher prices that follow will make EVs and renewables more attractive and provide them a larger share of the market. With each subsequent (less boom - more bust) cycle oil and gas (again as energy) will approach a point where it is no longer competitive with other sources (which will continue to become cheaper, more abundant, more efficient, etc.).

The oil and gas sector will never employ as many people as it did prior to this downturn.

Every time Hal lays off, they are hiring again in less than a year.

@QRD, "Stop worrying" a simplistic statement that doesn't reflect how the brain works.
Worry = anxiety, and the best way to address it is head-on, thinking even harder about it, and coming up with a what-if contingency plan for the situation. Start with the immediate- what's the first thing I need to do if they tell me I'm laid off? Then build subsequent steps.
But to believe your brain can turn off worry like a light switch is not realistic.

Can you control whether you have a job with Halliburton or not? Most likely the answer is no, so quit worrying because if you are gonna get laid off there ain’t a dang thing you can do about it. You are making it worse sitting there worrying. Do your job, do a good job and let what happens happens. Then worry about it if something does.

At the beginning of when the oil prices took a dump, they were estimating that 70% of oil driven jobs will be gone. They will not be gone forever, but because of the pandemic , I don’t think anyone truly knows how long it will take to recover those jobs. It’s best not to bank on any job, in reference to the oil energy sector. Hope things go well for you in the future.