When Donald Trump took office last year, he promised to revitalise the fossil fuels industry and boasted about creating hundreds of thousands of energy jobs by slashing environmental regulations and enabling a wave of drilling. So far, his administration's record is mixed. Oil production and corporate profits have jumped to near-record levels, driven in part by a surge in petrol and diesel prices caused by the Iran war. Yet employment in the US oil and gas sector has fallen by almost 13,000 jobs since the president was inaugurated last year.

Data published by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics shows employment in oil and gas extraction fell to 114,500 in July, the lowest number since the height of the Covid-19 pandemic when oil production collapsed. Oilfield services jobs have fallen by about 7,500 to 264,600 since January 2025. The drop in employment has occurred despite crude production rising by about 4 per cent to 13.8mn barrels a day since Trump's inauguration.

The corporate focus on cost-cutting and streamlining staff numbers continues a long-term trend in the US oil industry, which has prioritised investor returns over expansion after the shale market crash in 2014-16. Breakthroughs in drilling technology, automation and artificial intelligence have provided tools to enable companies to streamline their operations while continuing to boost production. Exxon's global workforce has fallen by about 24,000 to 58,000 people over the past 15 years while Chevron's has dropped by about 19,500 to 43,000.

The industry has demonstrated remarkable technology and labour efficiency gains over the last 15 years. It now takes less than half the number of people to produce the same amount of oil and gas as it did at the start of the shale boom,