Downsizing in the oil sector increases

Despite falling numbers of Coronavirus contaminations and rising oil prices, Tekna members report increased in staff reductions in the oil sector.

In a survey Tekna has conducted among its own elected representatives in the private sector, it appears that more companies in the oil industry have initiated or are assessing staffing reductions now than in a corresponding survey in March.

Of all the respondents in the survey, 45 percent say that the company in which they work has initiated reductions or is considering it. For the oil industry, however, the corresponding figure is 69 percent, an increase of 11 percent in two months.

– “We see that the activity in reductions is increasing, and 34 percent of the union representatives in the oil industry now reports that the reduction in staffing is being assessed or implemented. The situation has, therefore, become more serious in the sector since April, despite rising oil prices. We know from the previous crisis that stoppages in the oil sector also create major effects in the rest of the business sector,” says President Lise Lyngsnes Randeberg of Tekna.

She now hopes that the government will look at measures that can help increase activity – both in the short and long term.

A total of 56 percent of the 538 elected union officials responded to the survey, which was conducted on May 25 and 26, as a follow-up from similar surveys in March and April. Of the 303 respondents, 64 were elected officials from the oil industry and represented 9,925 of Tekna’s total 83,000 members.

© NTB Scanpix / #Norway Today