What jobs?!!

Yesterday, Bill Toland of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette wrote a story asking "where area all of the Marcellus Shale jobs?" Apparently, one economist has decided that the projections for jobs set forth in studies, particularly one by Penn State, are way overblown. To his credit, Toland did interview one of the Penn State researchers, a professor emeritus, who it seemed in his discussion was doing what most people should do with this "new information," which was dismiss it.
You've heard me talk about jobs in the Marcellus before, but this article is particularly funny to me in one specific way. The Post-Gazette, as regular readers know, runs a column various times through the week on its business pages called "Dateline." Dateline is a listing of awards won and general business news -- but mostly it lists new folks taking jobs at various companies and other personnel news. In my years practicing public relations in the area, its been one of the few sure fire hits out there. Any personnel news you submit is almost always printed within three weeks. Unless its from the oil and gas industry.
Working in the industry a few months back, I noticed that none of my personnel announcements were being printed. The first time I called, spoke to the compiler of the data, and she happily added my release. This was over a month after I sent it. The next three I sent never saw the light of day. So I asked some colleagues working at other oil and gas firms if they were seeing the same thing. The answer, almost unilaterally, was yes. None of their announcements were being printed either.
Now its no secret that the Post-Gazette has been hyper critical of the industry since the real possibilities of the Marcellus began taking form a few years back. In fact, last year, it had to eat some serious crow for deciding that fracing water was absolutely the factor causing the decimation of Dunkard Creek. Turns out, the coal industry was actually to blame. But that hasn't stopped the paper from constantly taking whacks at Marcellus development from every possible angle that it can.
But its funny to me that this paper, which prides itself on its objectivity, writes a headline and story like it did yesterday with only the opinion of only one likely anti-drilling economist to back it. If I had been writing Toland's story, I would have visited some Web sites like LinkedIn, monster.com, careerbuilder.com, hotjobs.com, oilandgaspeople.com, or a any other employment site with locally listed jobs, and counted how many related to the Marcellus exist. EQT alone has advertised for and is hiring enough people in the area to work its Marcellus initiatives to make your head spin. Sure, drillers, completions engineers, geologists, but also administrative assistants, accountants, environmental scientists, regulatory specialists, you name it. Canada's Talisman Energy is moving into the area and has held at least two major job fairs so far. Range Resources is regularly posting jobs.
But production companies aside, others are feeling the love as well. Across the country engineering firms are feeling the heat of a down economy -- but not here. They're fighting each other tooth and nail for a piece of the Marcellus pie. If you look at available jobs, you'll see local firms looking for water specialists, erosion and control engineers, specialists in endangered species and cultural resources, surveyors and so on. Not a coincidence -- all of this and more is needed to serve a client working in the Shale play.
Ask hotel/conference centers along the 79 corridor between Southpointe and Cranberry about their sales. The Hilton Garden Inn in Southpointe, The Sheraton Four Points in Cranberry and the Marriott in Cranberrry have all seen their share of meetings, workshops and conferences sponsored by some oil and gas entity. You'll even find a savvy realtor or two that will tell you all of this activity -- and those people shipped in from other areas (Gasp!) -- have helped the residential and commercial property markets here avoid the worst.
So I say to the Post-Gazette, some of those jobs are here -- and many more are coming as development increases. Don't believe me? Look at Range Resources. It started a few years back with one person in the area. It now has hundreds and is looking at designs to build its own office building in the area. More progress than most industries have made here in a while.