Although the oil price has somewhat recovered slightly in the past few weeks and is floating around the $40/barrel level currently, it’s still a tough economy for many job seekers and process equipment suppliers. This isn’t expected to noticeably improve in the short term.
In a recent Rigzone article about technology as it pertains to the oil and gas business, Jon Mainwaring posits the following:
The oil and gas industry is a sector in which workers (generally with science/engineering backgrounds) are typically unafraid of technological progress. But the news these days seems to be full of scary articles about how technology will soon replace much of the work currently being done by humans. Just as the post-war achievements with transistors and microchips led to robots being a common feature on car production lines by the 1980s, displacing many car assembly workers out of that workplace, future technological leaps forward in the office will see many white collar jobs disappear … so the thinking goes.
From a job searcher’s perspective, new technology can be key to separating yourself from other job searchers while also remaining up to date with the newest technology and processes. For process equipment suppliers, using the most up-to-date technology can help you keep existing customers happy which is easier than trying to find new customers to replace ones you’ve lost especially in this economy.