WASHINGTON: Friday’s jobs numbers confirm one thing about this week’s OPEC agreement: Shale producers were readying to raise production weeks before officials gathered in Vienna.Unlike the government’s overall employment numbers, much of the data on oil-and-gas extraction and support workers comes out with a one-month lag. So what follows concerns October.
The bleeding in the U.S. shale patch has all but stopped. While another 700 support jobs were lost, October was the first month since the oil crash began when that number was less than 1,000. And extraction jobs — the higher-paid professional positions — were stable (and actually increased slightly in November).
