The western part of North Dakota is not the only place in the country where every business is looking for help. The same thing is happening in the Eagle Ford and Permian fields in Texas.
Check out Bloomberg’s Eagle Ford Shale Boom Fuels ‘Madhouse’ in South Texas Counties report.
Previously closed businesses have reopened. Just about every store in town has a ‘help wanted’ sign.
Here are a few predictions or estimates for the Eagle Ford and Permian field production levels:
…the Eagle Ford Shale … formation holds an estimated 3 billion barrels of oil and 150 trillion cubic feet of natural gas reserves.
The [Eagle Ford] formation could provide as many as 900,000 barrels per day by 2016.
The Permian Basin, deep in west Texas, may reach 1 million barrels daily.
Eagle Ford oil output rose to more than 352,000 barrels a day in 2012, compared with 358 barrels a day in 2008, according to the commission.
The article says the housing crunch isn’t as bad as the Bakken area. That is a good thing.
Check out the impact on wages and staffing. A few of the article’s comments:
“You can make $15 an hour washing dishes at Wendy’s,”
…teenagers who earn $75,000 driving trucks the day they graduate from high school…
…the Cracker Barrel that couldn’t open until three months after the building was finished because of a lack of workers.
The article says one phone call to get a job for anyone that can pass a drug test and can get a commercial driving license (CDL is a new acronym I’ve learned in the last year).
Oh yes, the energy frontier is wide open.
If you need a job but you can’t stand the Dakota winters but could tolerate the Texas summers, head to western Texas.
Hmmm. How long till we read about oil workers that spend 6 months in Williston during the summer and 6 months in Texas during the winter?
(Hat tip – Carpe Diem)