API publishes research on important workforce issues and trends. In 2005, API published a study to identify certain positions which employers anticipated demand would exceed supply. The eight positions were petroleum engineering, geosciences and geophysics, engineering analysts, multi-skilled maintenance crafts, geoscience analysts, process/ production operators, and mechanical engineering. In this study, 22 of the 30 largest employers in the oil and natural gas industry anticipated that nearly a quarter of the employees in these eight key areas were estimated to be eligible for retirement before 2009 (see Workforce Challenges Survey Results).
Expansion projects across the energy sector will place a tremendous demand on the construction/skilled trade workforce, particularly in the southeast. The U.S. Department of Labor, in conjunction with the Southern Governors Association, conducted a Skilled Trades Summit this year to discuss the demand. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, refinery expansions in the United States will add approximately 800,000 additional barrels of capacity between now and 2012. There will be great demand for skilled labor to complete these expansion projects.