Not exactly lost, but not much noticed either is the big loss of jobs in mining and logging industry sector in
the latest dump of Pennsylvania jobs data. How big a loss? Total jobs in the mining and logging sector dropped 1,000 in May day compared to just a month prior. Is that a big drop? Basically the single biggest month over month loss since 1990 with the sole exception of June 1993 when the jobs count went down 1,200. The time series of the monthly delta looks like this:
But is even June 1993 comparable to the recent downward blip? June 1993 was the first full month of a major multi-state coal strike that would stretch through the end of the year. The big job loss that month likely reflects a lot of those jobs as workers temporarily were on strike. I am pretty sure the current job loss is not the result of any strike anywhere.
So of course the loss still is only a small fraction of the big run up in jobs in the same sector since 2008. Still, if this is more than a one-off kind of month, and this rate of loss continues then there is something important going on. What is curious is that the job loss does
not really show up in any mass layoff disclosed to the state this year.
To be sure, the net job loss is across the whole industry sector which is not limited to natural gas. Coal in particular is a big part of the state's mining industry and coal firms are laying off. Still, the lack of a mass layoff notice that correlates with the 1,000 job loss makes me think it is spread out across a larger number of smaller firms which may be the vast support sector for the shale industry. But we will be able to parse that much better in a few months, so hold that thought. For now we just know the net job loss is pretty big in total.
What does it mean? As always, take monthly data with a grain of salt. If this industry job count bounces back next month, or just holds it own, then maybe it was a one time reset of jobs that may have expanded too quickly in recent years. But if next month loses another big chunk of jobs then the question will be how far will this go and where will the job counts settle. Someone may need to do a study of what career decisions some of those workers made anticipating shale jobs long into the future.
This all comes on the state's methodological reset of the jobs impact of shale development in Pennsylvania. Until recently, the state counted jobs, but the new methodology announced last week the
number of shale jobs in Pennsylvania went from well over 200K to just about 30K instantaneously. .....so if you ever wanted a case study in how methodology is important to measurement, something nobody ever really wants to talk about. Everyone always just wants
the number.
Maybe it is time to restart those
annual economic impact reports that turned out to not be annual for very long.
At least one big potential market for natural gas took a big hit last week as well as Honda, the
only company in the US to manufacture a natural gas fueled consumer auto, announced that it would
cease production of its Civic GX. There were supposed to be
more and more private drivers with natural gas vehicles. I actually believe there were more folks driving personal natgas vehicles in the city of Pittsburgh a decade or two ago compared to today, but that may be my one anecdotal observation. But I'm sure the fleet uses for the station in the Strip District continue unabated?
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