Evangelist's Corner
Oil , Gas and Jobs , oh my!
Five years after the international deep recession, countries around the world are still seeking to grow and develop stronger pathways for economic prosperity. Over the last 2 years, the petroleum industry has added over 600,000 jobs in the US alone. Australia, which is dealing with a devaluation of their normally strong mineral industry, is in the process of ramping up aggressive plans to capture new areas of oil and gas deposits. Fracking laws are being revised around the world and natural gas deposits that previously deemed unattainable are now accessible.
However, the biggest limitation of developing the viable economic opportunities in petroleum, is the lack of a viable international talent pool trained to handle the complexities of modern automation systems and equipment that has advanced the petroleum industry. For example, there are a projected 100,000 openings in the Houston oil sector and thousands around the world as new wells and deposits are uncovered. Many of these jobs are in the maintenance and reliability career paths, yet most of the educational systems in the world are not communicating those needs to future generations.
We need to help calibrate the aspirations of our youth for the current and future needs of employers, or we will continue to experience serious skill gaps that inhibit our future prosperity potential. I highly encourage all reading this to venture into the classrooms. We need to help to develop more internship opportunities and bust the silos that currently exist between academia and business.
We also need to glorify and celebrate our function more as we are more important than any singer, dancer or athlete. We also need to serve on more educational advisory boards and help direct more efforts to develop viable pipelines of skilled workers that we will depend on boomers retire creating a large vacuum in their wake. We need you to get out, get up and get involved to help Fix It Forward. Contact me if any questions at joel@skilltv.net
