Article summary
- The World Economic Forum’s future of Jobs report has been released, and the oil and gas industry is one of the highlighted industries.
- According to the report, the oil and gas industry will remain active in the foreseeable future and will keep contributing to job growth.
- Declining roles in the oil and gas industry were identified as General and Operations Managers, Sales Representatives, Wholesale and Manufacturing, Technical and Scientific Accounting, Bookkeeping and Payroll Clerks, Data Entry Clerks, and Administrative and Executive Secretaries.
The World Economic Forum has released its Future of Jobs report for 2023. In the report, WEF stated that some challenges facing the global oil and gas industry in the next five years could be talent availability when hiring as well as talent retention in the existing workforce.
The WEF report listed the growing and declining roles in the oil and gas industry. The roles that are capable of driving business transformation in the oil and gas industry include:
- Petroleum and Natural Gas Refining Plant Operators
- Application Developers
- Project Managers
- Mechanics and machinery repairers
- Manufacturing, mining, construction, and distribution managers
- Big Data Specialists
- Accountants and auditors
Meanwhile, the declining roles in the oil and gas industry were identified as General and Operations Managers, Sales Representatives, Wholesale and Manufacturing, Technical and Scientific Accounting, Bookkeeping and Payroll Clerks, Data Entry Clerks, and Administrative and Executive Secretaries.
According to the report, the oil and gas industry will remain active in the foreseeable future, and there are some trends that will drive its relevance. The job creation trends include:
- Investments to facilitate the green transition of your business (74%)
- Broader application of Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) standards (58%)
- Consumers are becoming more vocal on environmental issues (47%).
- Climate-change-induced investments into adapting operations (42%).
- Demographic dividend in developing and emerging economies (38%)
- Broadening digital access (17%)
Meanwhile, increased geopolitical divisions were identified as an oil and gas job displacer at -12%. Recall that Nairametrics recently reported that the International Monetary Fund (IMF) countries in sub-Saharan Africa are at risk of losing $10 billion in foreign direct investments (FDI) and could lose access to markets if geopolitical tensions continue.
The IMF explained further that the escalation of current geopolitical tensions would see countries in sub-Saharan Africa, hit by higher import prices or even lose access to key export markets, meaning that half of the region’s value of international trade could be impacted.
Also, the WEF report identified technologies that could either be job creators or job displacers in the oil and gas industry. The job creators were listed as:
- Climate-change mitigation technology (Alternative Energy, Greenhouse gases) (61%)
- Environmental management technologies (for example, pollution abatement, recycling) (52%).
- Encryption and cybersecurity (50%)
- Power storage and generation (47%)
- Digital platforms and apps (27%)
Meanwhile, technology job displacers in the oil and gas industry were listed as:
- Cloud computing (-5%)
- Artificial intelligence (for example, machine learning, neural networks) (-10%)
- Internet of things and connected devices (-15%).
The WEF report identified the core skills needed to perform in key and stable roles within the oil and gas industry as follows:
- Cognitive skills
- Engagement skills
- Management skills
- Physical abilities
- Technology skills
- Ethics
- Self-efficacy
- Working with others
The WEF report also identified business practices with the greatest potential to improve talent availability in oil and gas companies:
- Improve talent progression and promotion processes.
- Improve people-and-culture metrics and reporting.
- Provide effective reskilling and upskilling.
- Offer higher wages.
- Improve internal-communication strategy
- Improve safety in the workplace.
- More diversity, equity, and inclusion policies and programs
- Better articulate business purpose and impact
- Support employee health and well-being
- Improve working hours and overtime.
