I've been posting on the oil field slump here pretty regularly in a string of posts of which this one is part, Lex Anteinternet: The best-laid schemes o' mice an' men: Lex Antein.... It isn't the only one by any means, however.
Anyhow, in today's Tribune there's a story that on the very day that Halliburton's local lift division (pumps) was to move into their new quarters, they ended up laying off the entire local division. Pretty dramatic event really. How many people that is, is unclear, but the paper noted that at the end of the day there were 25 trucks in the lot that didn't leave. That would presumably equate with 25 lost jobs at least.
In fairness, it must be noted that Halliburton recently merged with Baker Hughes, and this might be principally due to that merger. The paper's article seems to suggest it probably is, based upon their overviews of Halliburton personnel, and that makes sense to me. Halliburton acquired Baker Hughes for a reason, and that reason was to acquire its business, but it would make sense that there was some overlapping business to start with. Indeed, as I think of Halliburton as a service company, I was surprised that it had a division that installed oilfield pumps. Chances are high that Baker Hughes, which started off as an equipment company, would be more likely to have a more developed line of business doing the same thing really, so that may explain it.
Still, even though the article still includes some people who take a "it may be temporary" and "things are still going on strong here (referring to South Dakota)", that things aren't going well in the oil patch right now is pretty evident. I'd guess that for those who were looking at going right from school into the oil patch, things are looking much different.
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