The Bakersfield Californian – by John Cox
A Canadian oil field services company appears to be the first in Bakersfield to carry out a mass layoff as a result of the recent collapse of oil prices.
Ensign Energy Services Inc. warned state officials earlier this month that it expected to release 700 people in Bakersfield effective Dec. 15, according to a website maintained by the state Employment Development Department.
The notice did not specify whether the layoffs were permanent or temporary, calling their duration “not known.”
A receptionist who answered a company phone number in Bakersfield late Tuesday said no one was available to discuss the layoffs. There was no answer at Ensign’s Calgary, Alberta headquarters.
Ensign is a publicly traded company that performs oil-related services including well drilling and testing.
Although the EDD website lists no other large, oil-related layoffs in Kern County since June, people in the industry have warned that a roughly 50 percent drop in oil prices over the past six months has made work reductions unavoidable. They said cutbacks would be made around the first of the year.
Last month, the sector employed 11,800 people across the county, which was unchanged from October but a decline since September of 400 jobs, or about 3 percent, the EDD reported.
In the aftermath of the last big downturn in prices six years ago, employment in Kern’s petroleum industry fell from 10,300 jobs in November 2008 to 8,400 a year later, a decline of about 18 percent, according to the department.
…and so it begins…
I use to live in Bakersfield in the mid to late 1970’s. When oil slump hit the entire county fell flat. In the early 1980″s it hit real hard and there was 50% unemployed.