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The oil and gas industry added 10,500 new jobs over the second quarter, according to industry news service Rigzone. That’s a two-thirds increase over the same period in 2013.
Between April and June, companies in the oil and gas sector added more than 4,000 new positions in Texas. That gave the Lone Star State a commanding lead in job creation for the industry. Louisiana came in second, with about 600 new oil and gas jobs. Alaska took third with 500.
“In total, looking at the first half of the year, over 20,000 positions in the U.S. were created,” says Paul Caplan, president of Rigzone. “Last year at this time, the halfway mark of the year was about 12,600, so we’re talking about a substantial increase in the number of, especially, production jobs.”
Turnover in the oil and gas industry is running on the high side. In the second quarter, nearly 17,000 professionals a month voluntarily left jobs in the mining and logging industry, which Rigzone uses as a proxy for the U.S. oil and gas sector. That compares to an average of roughly 12,000 workers a month over the past ten years.
