The U.S. oil and gas supermajors, Exxon and Chevron, have seen their employee numbers grow in the United States in 2024, but they have also posted job openings overseas, including in India, the Philippines, and Argentina, new research by data and analytics company GlobalData showed.
Overall, the number of job postings at Exxon and Chevron declined this year, but hiring trends remain positive and relatively better compared to pre-Covid numbers, according to the analytics firm.
These hiring trends are valid for the entire global oil and gas industry, with countries with high job posting numbers, including the United States, India, and the UK. At the same time, countries with high year-on-year growth in job postings included Sweden and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), according to the GlobalData Job Analytics Database.
“It is noteworthy that even though the US continues to account for a majority of jobs posted by several key players, other countries across different continents are also seeing hiring activity by these companies,” said Sherla Sriprada, business fundamentals analyst at GlobalData.
Most of the job openings at Exxon and Chevron were for the United States, but the supermajors also posted a significant number of jobs for the Philippines, Argentina, and several India locations.
Exxon’s job ads are focusing on EM lithium products in the U.S. and lube operations in Argentina, while Chevron is looking to hire talent for supply and trading bulk operations in Argentina and complying with GHG/methane regulations in the United States, the GlobalData research found.
“Employment trend analysis at Exxon and Chevron from GlobalData’s Company Filings Analytics Database also reveals that Exxon’s worldwide employee counts have declined over the last five years, while Chevron has seen an increase in 2023,” Sriprada said.
“However, Exxon US employee counts have seen a marginal increase in 2023 while Chevron US employee counts had a much healthier growth.”
In the U.S. upstream, Exxon and Chevron, as well as other producers, have been looking to do more with less and have boosted their output even as rig counts have remained relatively flat over the past few months.
Despite the coming administration of a President with friendly policies toward the industry, U.S. producers are not expected to embark on a “drill, baby, drill” campaign to boost oil and gas output significantly.
Commodity prices and market fundamentals will be much more important signals for the work and production activity that the companies will be doing in 2025 and beyond, although deregulation and faster permitting for energy infrastructure could help, analysts say.
The priorities of the U.S. oil industry have drastically changed since Trump’s first term.
The U.S. shale patch is drilling, but it is drilling because it wants to distribute more of the profits to shareholders. It has made huge progress in capital discipline and efficiency gains and is getting more bang for its buck. Priorities are now returns to investors and financial frames capable of withstanding oil price volatility.
“We’re not going to see anybody in ‘drill, baby, drill’ mode,” ExxonMobil Upstream President Liam Mallon said at the end of last month.
“A radical change (in production) is unlikely because the vast majority, if not everybody, is focused on the economics of what they’re doing,” Mallon added.
The other supermajor, Chevron, announced in early December that its 2025 capital expenditure (capex) would be lower than in 2024.
Chevron expects its upstream spending next year to be about $13 billion, of which roughly two-thirds will go to develop its U.S. portfolio.
“Permian Basin spend is lower than the 2024 budget and anticipated to be between $4.5 and $5.0 billion as production growth is reduced in favor of free cash flow,” Chevron said.
By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com