Economic Report 2011
Employment
The oil and gas sector continues to be a major source of often highly paid employment and, thereby, a significant contributor to the national economy. This is re-affirmed by analysis previously commissioned through Experian which uses data from the Office of National Statistics (ONS) to provide an update of the employment generated by the industry. Based on this insight, it is estimated that in 2010 some 440,000 jobs across the United Kingdom were supported by the activity on the UKCS and the export of oil and gas related goods and services around the world.
Experian calculates that exploration for and extraction of oil and gas from the UKCS accounts for around 340,000 of these: 32,000 directly employed by oil and gas companies and the major oil and gas service companies, 207,000 throughout the wider supply chain (“indirect” in Figure 41) and 100,000 jobs which are estimated to be supported by the economic activity induced by employees’ spending. Furthermore, Oil & Gas UK has estimated that there were an additional 100,000 jobs supported by the oil and gas supply chain’s growing export business, bringing the total employment provided by the sector to about 440,000 jobs in 2010. Given the Industry’s continued activity, the number employed is likely to remain at least as many in 2011.
