Texas oil and gas industry continues to dominate job growth

The Texas oil and natural gas industry continues to add jobs, dominating job growth nationwide, according to the latest Texas Workforce Commission and Department of Labor data.

The sector added 1,900 jobs in the upstream sector over the month in February, bringing the total upstream employment to 205,400 in Texas.

Texas oil and natural gas industry job growth continued as Texas again led the U.S. in job creation overall for a record 56 out of 58 months last month, The Center Square reported.

“Reaching an unprecedented production of over 2 billion barrels of oil in 2024 was only possible because of the tremendous capabilities of the men and women who work in the oil and natural gas sector of our economy,” TXOGA President Todd Staples said. “These resilient and skilled individuals are doing more than ever before and making significant and effective environmental gains in the process.”

Since the COVID-era low point of September 2020, the Texas oil and natural gas industry added 48,400 upstream jobs in Texas, averaging growth of 913 jobs per month. Since then, months with upstream oil and gas employment increases outnumbered those with decreases by 38 to 14, TXOGA said.

Upstream jobs pay among the highest wages in Texas, with an average salary of approximately $128,000 last year. The average annual wage was 74% more than all average private sector jobs in the state, The Center Square reported.

The upstream sector includes oil and natural gas extraction and some types of mining. It excludes other sectors like refining, petrochemicals, fuels wholesaling, oilfield equipment manufacturing, pipelines, and gas utilities, which support hundreds of thousands of additional jobs statewide.

According to a Texas Independent Producers and Royalty Owners Association (TIPRO) analysis, the Texas job market continued to remain strong with 10,172 active unique industry jobs postings last month, including 3,337 new postings. The majority of available jobs are in Houston, Midland and Odessa, according to the data.

Texas by far has the most available jobs in the industry, followed by California’s 2,869 unique job postings, New York’s 2,460, Florida’s 1,868 and Colorado’s 1,445, according to the analysis. Nationwide, a total of 52,993 unique job postings were reported in the U.S. oil and natural gas industry last month, according to the analysis.

In addition to industry employment growth in Texas, “Texas’ role in the global LNG market also grew substantially, with pipeline projects designed to support LNG exports to international allies,” TIPRO notes. This was a result of several major pipeline expansions that occurred last year, adding roughly 8.5 Bcf/d of capacity to deliver natural gas to liquified natural gas (LNG) export terminals, it says. Increased exports through Gulf Coast LNG terminals in Corpus Christi and Freeport helped “bolster America’s ability to supply affordable and reliable energy to partners in Europe and Asia, reducing dependency on adversarial energy suppliers,” TIPRO argues.

Four LNG terminals actively under construction last year had a combined investment of at least $49 billion; Texas LNG exports were valued at $9.1 billion in 2023, representing 27.3% of LNG exports nationwide, according to the Texas Comptroller’s Office.

Job growth continues in the Texas oil and natural gas industry after it again broke multiple records in 2024, from production, to job creation, to taxes and royalties paid, The Center Square reported.

In Texas, the industry led the U.S. in nearly every category, including employing the most workers nationwide. Texas accounts for 23% of all oil and natural gas jobs in the U.S., supporting 480,460 directly last year, with direct and indirect jobs totaling nearly 2.8 million, according to another TIPRO analysis.

Texas also reported the largest oil and gas payroll of any state in 2024 of $62 billion, followed by California’s $15 billion and Louisiana’s $10 billion, according to the analysis.

Nationwide, the U.S. oil and natural gas industry supported more than 2 million direct jobs last year, with total direct and indirect jobs reaching nearly 23 million, The Center Square reported.