Hundreds line up for gushing West Texas oil jobs

By Liz Hampton
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Reuters•August 03, 2018
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Job seekers line up at a job fair of an oil services giant Halliburton at the MCM Grande Fundome hotel in Odessa Texas
Job seekers line up at a job fair of an oil services giant Halliburton at the MCM Grande Fundome hotel in Odessa, Texas, U.S., July 19, 2018. Picture taken on July 19, 2018. REUTERS/Liz Hampton
By Liz Hampton
ODESSA, TEXAS (Reuters) - Job fairs are stocked with people hungry for better opportunities, but inside the MCM Grande Hotel in Odessa, Texas, oil services giant Halliburton is the one doing the wooing.
“We need to hire you is our message,” said Chris Redman, a field services manager with Summit ESP, which Halliburton acquired last year.
More than 500 men and women flocked to the hotel in Odessa, Texas, on a Thursday last month to be courted by Halliburton, which needs people to handle everything from oilfield technicians to truck drivers, as oil production booms and qualified workers become more scarce.
The U.S. unemployment rate is 3.9 percent, just off an 18-year low, but job growth has slowed more recently - notably because companies are having trouble finding people.
That is particularly true in the oilfields of West Texas, where workers from local towns like Midland and Odessa have flocked to the oil industry for higher pay. According to a June Dallas Federal Reserve Bank survey of 60 oil executives operating in West Texas, more than half cited difficulty finding workers as a potential drag on growth.
Halliburton, the second largest provider of oilfield services after Schlumberger, is adding more than 175 jobs a month, hiring executives say. Redman said people with commercial drivers' licenses are in particular demand, but numerous attendees at the jobs fair do not have that license.