If you're like most Americans, then you are absolutely loving the price you paid this week for a gallon of gas. Just a couple of years ago it was not uncommon to see a $75 price tag for filling up your car. Today, you might be driving off for half that amount.
On the surface the recent drop in the price of oil has been a huge boost to America's pocket books. But according to some analysts we shouldn't be to quick to celebrate. The U.S. Oil and Gas industry has seen incredible job growth during the recession, with nearly 800,000 new jobs being attributed to domestic fracking and drilling expansion. At over $100 barrel, there was plenty of money to go around.
But with a sub-sixty dollar price point, it's quite possible that all economic hell is about to break loose.
For many it has already begun.
Thousands of recently highly paid workers have been laid off after the oil price plummeted 50 percent in 2014. At least four American oil-producing states are already facing budget problems due to decreasing oil revenues.
In a study published last year, the Council on Foreign Relations warned the largest job losses caused by sharp decline in oil prices are going to take place in North Dakota, Oklahoma and Wyoming, where the number of drilling rigs is decreasing.
According to Tom Runiewicz, a US industry economist at IHS Global Insight, if oil stays around $56 a barrel till the middle of the next year, companies providing services to oil and gas industry could lose 40,000 jobs by the end of 2015, while oil and gas equipment manufacturers could slash up to 6,000 jobs.
These workers can earn more than $1,700 a week, much higher than the average $848 a week payment for other workers, the WSJ reported. When experienced workers lose their highly paid jobs, they stop paying their bills.
Source: RT
Those are the conservative estimates and they are based on a $56 price point, which is almost exactly where we are today. But Saudi Arabia and other OPEC nations have suggested the price could drop to $40 or even as low as $20. In such a scenario we could easily see widespread layoffs in an industry that currently employs over 10 million Americans.
