Tuesday, January 20, 2015

Lex Anteinternet: $40/barrel? The layoffs continue

Lex Anteinternet: $40/barrel?:   Driven by Saudi Arabian efforts, the price of petroleum oil is falling through the floor.  When I last checked, it was down under $70...
Just recently it was announced that Schlumberger was engaging in substantial layoffs.  Now the news comes that Halliburton is laying off 1,000 employees, and Baker Hughes, which Halliburton is buying, is laying off an additional 7,000.

Layoffs of this level are pretty hard to ignore, and at some point the slowdown becomes more than that, due to its own inertia.

2 comments:

Neil A. Waring said...

Not sure what to think about this. Great at the pumps but not good for Wyoming and I fear it may not be great for America in the long run.

Pat, Marcus & Alexis said...

It'd definitely going to have a major economic impact on Wyoming, both in that layoffs here are inevitable in my opinion, and there's going to be an inevitable impact on the state's budget.

I can't see real downsides for the US at large however. If we aren't headed out of a petroleum economy, then this has the odd impact of preserving our own vast resources from use for potentially a long time. If we're headed out of a petroleum economy, it means we'll do so more cheaply than we otherwise would have. Indeed, I'd be curious of this has statistically put is in a deflationary cycle.