Oil and gas jobs outnumbered steel jobs in Pennsylvania last year

News
September 17, 2014
Michael Sanserino
 
Anybody who grew up in Western Pennsylvania, worked in a mill or rooted for a football team called the “Steelers” might find it hard to believe, but there are more people in Pennsylvania working in the oil and gas industry than there are in the steel industry.
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The flurry of economic activity comes on the heels of an era of manufacturing setbacks. The United States lost more than 1 million manufacturing jobs between 1999 and 2008 because of high natural gas prices, said Christopher Guith, senior vice president for policy at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Institute for 21st Century Energy.
 
But in the four-year period between 2008-12, the natural gas industry alone added 2.1 million jobs to the U.S. economy, according to global information company IHS, based in Colorado. By 2025, that number is expected to grow to 3.9 million jobs.
 
“If you look in the past five years, during the greatest recession since the Great Depression this was really the only industry that was creating jobs, and it was creating them at a huge rate,” Mr. Guith said. “It is an anchor already, and I think it will continue to be.”
 
Read the full article at Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.