Scary - if this ends up hitting the entire industry:
Exclusive-ConocoPhillips says it will reduce workforce by 20-25%
That is the company’s first large layoff since a big merger at the end of last year with Marathon oil.
Oh so might be removing duplication vs. a poorly performing sector??
Still, I imagine the industry is a big college recruiter even though not often talked about.
Oil and gas sector has not been doing that well recently according to Wall Street.
1 Like
Interesting note from BoA today. Unemployment rate of recent grads is now above the overall unemployment rate- has been since pandemic but gap getting bigger. Reverses trend of pre-pandemic
Also, over 13% of unemployed Americans are new job market entrants , the highest since 1988.
So to those who say the market is harder than it’s been for a while for new grads, you’re right.
8 Likes
Reid Hoffman has thoughts on that Stanford paper about AI impact on entry level roles
I’ll be interested to see when stats come out - and @momofboiler1 shared some from Purdue but also her daughter’s company- but a drop of 16% doesn’t mean no jobs. It means 1/6 less.
So “most” kids should still be able to find jobs…whether good or tied to their major I don’t know…but jobs that companies seek college kids for.
This article says that overall hiring by big tech has plummeted in recent years, and a 25% decrease in the past 1-2 year by FAANG companies.
My youngest had an almost certain job – at his summer employer, they were discussing salary, and that the position would be finalized “next week”. Next week came, and they said that since business was slow, actually, they weren’t hiring. This is for a job AI cannot do. (Not in tech or finance).
16 Likes
It seems like recent new graduates are facing the dual head winds of AI disruption and current economic conditions.
11 Likes
I also find it cowardly and myopic of some of these CEOs to approach AI simply as a cost saving tool. If I had the tools and scale some of these companies have, and I truly believed in AI’s potential I would hiring aggressively to expand my capabilities and taking on a rapid growth mandate. Look at what OpenAI is doing - they want to know create a new job site to take on LinkedIn and it would be idiotic of LinkedIn to think they can flourish in the AI era by simply doing the same with less people.
1 Like
I was discussing this with dh the other day and he feels that at the moment AI is the bright new shiny “toy” that companies are playing with. He thinks once they’re confronted with the limitations of the technology they’ll realize that it can’t really replace as many roles as they think. For example relying on “vibe coders” cut and pasting from ChatGPT instead of proper software engineers is likely to end up biting them in the derriere.
We’ll see if he’s right.
5 Likes
Exactly - you end up with a computerized camel designing your jet airliner!
@CC_Sorin just posted a best for young kids places to live which includes a job rank - another ranking 
Last I saw labeled Huntsville the top city for young kids. .
Maybe kids should be seeking opportunity here. Of course, a rank doesn’t give you a job
- The cities with the best employment opportunities are Louisville, KY; Los Angeles, CA; and Miami, FL.
I’m pretty skeptical about these rankings. I LOL’ed at Lubbock, TX having the best “cultural and social environment”. Even the Uber drivers openly ask in astonishment why any visitor has come there. Although affordable, Louisville really isn’t a hotbed of “employment opportunities” unless you are happy earning <$15/hour. And SF is way too expensive to come top in “quality of life”.
5 Likes
Last week I posted about Conoco Phillips laying off a lot. Turns out drill, baby drill, isn’t good for employment. The cost of oil is too low - and more is coming. Can’t be good for Texas area college students.
Analysis-Cuts to US oil jobs and spending threaten output growth
1 Like
Skeptical here too. They categorize St. Paul, MN as a “small city” of less than 300,000. In reality it’s a metro area of 3.7 million.
Well I guess “technically” it’s true…but are they looking at culture, etc. just in the city or in the metro area?
St. Paul is a city located in Dakota County, Minnesota. St. Paul has a 2025 population of 298,940. St. Paul is currently declining at a rate of -0.81% annually and its population has decreased by -3.92% since the most recent census, which recorded a population of 311,140 in 2020.
Get a degree in accounting, they said.
1 Like
OPEC can mess with the US oil industry because US oil is relatively high cost to extract. Lower oil prices (that may still be profitable for OPEC countries whose oil is relatively low cost to extract) cause US oil drillers looking for expensive oil to shut down. Of course, if oil demand is high, then OPEC may want to raise prices to collect the extra money, even though that will lead to US oil drillers getting back into the game.