Nothing New For Regular Readers

Rigzone is reporting:

The oil and natural gas industry has played an instrumental role in the recovery of the United States economy following the economic recession, the Energy Information Administration (EIA) said in its Today in Energy brief released on Thursday.

To put into perspective just how much the energy sector contributed to economic growth, consider that total private sector employment increased by more than one million jobs, or about one percent, during the six-year period of 2007 through 2012. The growth of oil and gas industry jobs alone during the same period increased by more than 162,000, or an increase of about 40 percent, the EIA said.

Three job categories – drilling, extraction and support – combined for much of the growth in oil and natural gas industry jobs – jobs that kept a support floor under private sector employment figures.

There were more than 90,000 drilling jobs by the end of 2012, according to the Labor Department’s Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). That was an increase of 6,600 jobs since 2007. The BLS characterizes drilling as any job related to the spudding and drilling of wells, or the reworking of wells.