Seems the US had the hardest hit, meanwhile in Europe there has been no mention of lay offs, PIPs in HQs (or at least has been kept quiet). Are our European colleagues affected?
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I am not aware of any GOOD oil and gas jobs open right now. Seems no one is hiring. This will be a very long job hunt for many. XOM people will be looking soon, but CVX and RDS layoffs start in just 6 weeks. Market will be flooded with job hunters
@Lesley- you are missed, the atmosphere died after Europe Above Operations. Plus you were a great Controls Advisor! Hope you are keeping well.
The European operations (certainly downstream) are much much leaner than the US. Headcount is tiny at refineries and chem plants vs the US. Salaries and benefits are also much lower. There just isn't the same cost saving potential in Europe so I'm afraid the us will be targeted much more. I was based in Europe but had lengthy assignments to the US so know the numbers pretty well.
I think it's just that few Europeans visit this website. I was in EMIT Operations in the UK until 2018 when I got laid off. I had worked mostly in upstream IT before and had worked in Aberdeen mostly. Probably about 20% of us in the GSC organisation across Europe were made redundant then. However, I don't think a lot of our US colleagues heard about it. Back then I didn't know about this website myself.
I'm interested to hear about what has happened since I left. It seems most of the posters here are US based
Europe has protections for employees and universal health care on top of that. The politicians we elect don't want that here.
XOM cuts low performers (bottom 8%) then re-deploys people to where the work is. Companies like CVX and RDS cut based on performance AND regional work activity. So in CVX/RDS, if you are on a project that is deferred and your performance is not in the top groups (yes they have performance groups with forced percentages), then cuts can get very deep into good performers who by bad luck were assigned to marginal or deferred projects. CVX and RDS frequently cut GOOD performers. For example, in CVX, they radically trimmed Marcellus gas and over 50% were cut, but the GOM Anchor project and Tenghiz had limited cuts. XOM goes to extra effort of re-deploying people to where the activity is, even downstream moving to upstream and vice versa. There is risk in CVX and RDS if you accept an assignment in a marginal project
Europe layoffs will come soon enough.
Most of European Upstream will be sold off by 2025. Germany and UK plus Netherlands shutdown. Only a few Upstream Business Development needed in Europe. Not sure what Downstream assets will be sold (JV German refinery and Norway refinery, Fife ethylene??? another Italian refinery?)
There are no employment contracts for professionals, so company is not reneging on any contract. The company will honor union contracts for wage and negotiate with union.
AP is currently going thru the PIP process. Last week we have started seeing ppl leaving due to this. the same 8% is applied.
They have to work with the Euro work councils, this could take 12 to 18 months. It will follow in Europe , but will not be as severe
Europeans are not affected right now. These are US-based non-union layoffs only. But Europe's and Asia's time will come. When they sell off assets overseas that will have similar effects on the workstaffs.
May depend on how easily they can get away with it. In the US, specifically Texas, they can let employees go for no reason at all. At will employees have no protections and the company can reneg on employment contracts as they wish. If you consult lawyers here they say that unless it's discrimination based on race, religion, gender, s-xual orientation etc. (the big ones protected under Federal law) there's nothing an employee can do. Harrassment is perfectly fine as long as it's not one of the above stated reasons. The company can get rid of you with no justification. Its perfectly legal. If there are better employee protections in Europe yall may be safer.
It is standard across the board but EUR has better labour protection for EMP.
The reality is that the US is very high cost and they have been protected from job cuts or offshoring in the past... you know to make a person redundant in the US, you need a DoAG 1?!
The Upstream has finally woken up to what everyone else in XOM has been loving since 2006... salary arbitrage. I know it because I survived a cut recently.