Energy job cuts approaching 200,000 worldwide

The oil bust’s toll on corporate payrolls continues to grow. Job cuts in the petroleum industry reached nearly 196,000 globally last week, according to a Houston energy consultant, after ConocoPhillips said it would cut 10 percent of its workforce and other energy firms announced more layoffs. Nearly half of the oil industry’s reductions over the past year have come from the oil field service industry, firms that provide oil and gas producers with drill bits, well casing, hydraulic fracturing pumps and other technology, says John Graves, president of Graves & Co., who has tracked the layoffs closely. Though most of the reductions have come from oil field service firms so far, analysts believe oil producers could spur the next wave of layoffs...more