CALGARY — Direct jobs in Canada’s oil and gas sector fell by 35,000 in the decade to 2023 despite significant production growth during the same period, according to new analysis from the Pembina Institute.
Drilling Down: Oil and gas jobs in transition examines the period since the 2014 global oil price crash – a seismic event that, it is now clear, fundamentally altered Canadian oil and gas companies’ investment decisions.
The report finds that, post-2014, companies stopped investing in large sources of new production – the types of projects that had previously created upswings in employment and sources of revenue years and decades into the future. Instead, they adopted shorter-term outlooks, bolstering their market positions through mergers, acquisitions, and share re-purchases, and cutting costs through the consolidation of workforces and automation of some roles.
