Service industry needs to attract and keep skilled labor By Tom Fowler

March 09, 2010

CERAWeek: Service industry needs to attract and keep skilled labor

There is a shortage of skilled labor in the industry. That was the consensus today at an IHS CERAWeek panel of service industry folks, who discussed how to ensure capacity in the supply chain.

During the recession, a good number of the workforce was laid off and much of the current workforce is close to retirement, said Pride International chief Louis Raspino.

Raspino said that the industry hasn't done a good job of keeping labor in the down cycles, which makes it difficult to attract people in the up cycles.

He added that finding good labor is also difficult now that the industry has become so much more technical.

Maroun Semaan, Group COO of facilities provider Petrofac, agreed. Semaan said that projects have suffered because of poor quality of construction. He said that it's a good investment to induct people into the industry and train them. He noted that his company has started a young graduates program. (They found young graduates were easier to train than people who already had established work habits with previous employers).

The industry has no trouble attracting people, but retaining workers is a different story, Halliburton's Tim Probert said. He noted that students have a different idea of the industry than people might have had a decade ago. They think they will spend a little time in the field then "drive a desk" for the rest of their years.

"We need to keep people interested and attracted," Probert said. "As an industry, we can't afford attrition, because stuff is so much more technical than it was 10 to 15 years ago."

Raspino said people don't choose workplaces so much for the money as they do for the work environment.

"The workforce expects a lot more out of their employers than they might have 10, 15 years ago," he said. "They expect a lot more feel good things and they expect supervisors to be leaders and managers. In the drilling business that's a huge change when you have supervisors that are used to managing with a 2-by-4."

Raspino said there should be an investment in training leaders. Pride has just opened a training center in France and is investing in another one in Brazil, he said.

He said training and finding leaders is the only way the industry can meet needs at a time when there's a growing fleet of rigs in this down economy.

Brad Dickson, VP and Chief Marketing Officer of Dresser-Rand, said his company has reached out to universities and trade schools to attract people with technical expertise.

He noted that in past down cycles the industry would shut down and tell interested people to come back in a couple of years.

"We in the industry now see that this was short thinking," Dickson said.


nancy@callnancyfurst.com