Bridging the talent gap

The ‘Big Crew Change’ has become a major topic over the past few years when forward thinking businesses began to look at how they would bridge the future knowledge gap. Industry bodies invested in attracting young people into the sector and individual companies developed their own programmes to attract both graduates and mid-career employees with existing skills – the oil and gas industry jobs market boomed.

In the last quarter of 2008, the oil price dived, dropping by 70 percent in a few months. In terms of jobs, this could have led to a similar crash and many expected it would. However, the oil and gas jobs market has contracted slowly. Vacancy numbers on our international jobs board, Oilcareers.com, continued to grow until the end of 2008 before easing back and stabilising at levels comparable with those of the previous summer. Despite headlines of tens of thousands of jobs to be shed, in reality, the industry may have learned the lessons of earlier oil price drops, where severe cuts in manpower lead to the loss of whole generations of oil and gas workers.

In previous periods of oil price contraction, jobs were shed quickly and ruthlessly, resulting in many vital, experienced people, turning their back on the industry and more significantly, the sector was seen as far less attractive for clever young people beginning their careers. This is why there are the age gaps in today's industry demographic.

The Big Crew Change remains a serious challenge to the industry. Although energy demand has eased in 2009, growth will inevitably return in the future and the global output of oil and gas will increase again to meet demand. This means that the skills that leave the industry in the next decade will still have to be replaced. We will need an even greater skills base in the future, as hydrocarbon production becomes increasingly challenging.

The oil and gas industry has been at the forefront of engineering challenges and innovation for decades and this will continue. Renewable energy will become increasingly important and it will be an attractive career path for young people forging their careers. However, much of the expertise needed by this growing sector will come from the oil and gas industry through skills transfer. In many respects the established sector will lead the newcomer, so it makes sense for those wanting a long-term future in renewables to first cut their energy teeth in oil and gas.

Everyone who works in the oil and gas industry has prospered with high oil prices and we will still do so even if oil prices continue at the $60-$65 level, which they are at now. We shouldn't forget that even this price per barrel is still high, even when historical prices are adjusted for inflation.

Operators and service companies need to make sure that they remain employers of choice and that any cut backs due to drops in profit, don't lead to the skill base going in other directions. BP Group Chief Executive Tony Hayward, recently said: "The challenges the world faces in growing supplies to meet future demand are not below ground, they are above ground. They are human, not geological."

Hopefully the industry will listen to this advice and remember that the challenge of the Big Crew Change is still present. Using Oilcareers.com as a benchmark, with more than 550,000 registered users, right now the industry is still seen as a desirable career choice. However, if the industry stops investing in its people, it may reduce costs in the short-term, but in the not too distant future it will face a real crisis, a human crisis without the skills needed to prosper.

BIO

Mark Guest joined Oilcareers.com as Managing Director in April 2009 tasked with driving UK and international growth. Previous to this he was Company Director at AVC PR Partnership, developing an extensive knowledge of the oil and gas industry from working with operators and service companies in the UK and internationally.