The layoffs come as the oil and gas industry faces boomeranging oil prices stemming from the war in Iran, widespread industry consolidation and job automation.
The layoffs across the company’s manufacturing, engineering, materials, purchasing and other support units have already begun, according to the notice filed with Texas Workforce Commission July 1. They are expected to impact employees at Baker Hughes’ Emmott Road facility in Northwest Houston, a major 171,600-square-foot manufacturing and testing site.
“Baker Hughes continually reviews our portfolio and business operations to ensure we are best positioned to serve our customers and deliver on our long-term growth objectives,” a spokesperson for the company said. “These decisions are always difficult and are made with the utmost sensitivity to the impact on employees, communities and customers.”
The cuts “could be construed as a ‘mass layoff’ ” or “plant closing,” according to the company’s layoff notice.
Impacted employees have already been notified, the letter said.
Job cuts have plagued Houston’s oil giants over the last few years. Chevron cut more than 1,200 employees in Houston last year after announcing plans to reduce its global workforce by 20%. Hess Corp. cut more than 500 of its headquarter employees in Houston after its much-anticipated and embattled merger with Chevron was completed last year.
The Greater Houston Partnership warned last year that declining crude prices could lead to a loss of more than 3,000 jobs across Houston’s oil and gas sector in 2026.
But the market turned unpredictable after the U.S. ‘s January incursion into Venezuela to re-open the country’s stagnant oil industry and the global oil shortage created by the months long shuttering of the Strait of Hormuz, the shipping channel off the coast of Iran responsible for moving 20% of the world’s petroleum products.
Since then, Dallas Federal Reserve Bank economists have said, Texas’ oil and gas companies appear to be acting “far more financially disciplined than in the past.”