Skill Shortage in North Sea Warns Unite

Oil and gas companies operating in the North Sea are facing a skills shortage as the industry recovers as experienced workers have gone elsewhere, Unite is warning.

Wullie Wallace, regional officer for Unite in Aberdeen, said companies are now having trouble recruiting, as many workers have found employment elsewhere during the recession.

"We're getting indications now that when business picks up we're going to get a skills shortage," he said.
"People aren't ready for the upturn and that's when the companies have problems."

OilCareers, a dedicated oil and gas sector recruitment Web site, reported a 60% increase in new orders in the first quarter of 2010 compared with a year earlier as more companies sign up to the service ahead of advertising jobs.

The Web site also saw a 10% increase in traffic in the first quarter of 2010 compared with a year earlier, with more than 850,000 visits per month from more than 450,000 unique visitors.

"We've had a very significant growth in our business in 2010," said Mark Guest, managing director of OilCareers.

"Candidate numbers increased last year because people were worried about finding jobs. This has continued this year but now we have more business traffic than ever, although vacancies aren't yet back to their peak."

The U.K.'s oil and gas sector employs more than 450,000 people, 45% of them in Scotland. Although exploration in the North Sea hit an all-time low in the first quarter of 2010, with only four wells spudded, the industry remains the country's largest industrial investor, spending around GBP12.3 billion in exploration, development and production operations.