How many jobs has the oil and natural gas industry created?

Industry supports 9.8 million jobs or 5.6 percent of total U.S. employment, according to PwC. In 2012, the unconventional oil and natural gas value chain and energy-related chemicals activity together supported more than 2.1 million jobs, according to IHS – a number that’s projected to reach 3.9 million by 2025.

Rapid growth in oil production from shale using advanced hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling is creating high-paying jobs and boosting personal incomes in states like North Dakota and Texas. Thanks to development in the Bakken Shale formation, North Dakota boasts the nation’s lowest unemployment rate.  North Dakota also saw the nation’s fastest growing income in 2013, at 7.6 percent, due to growth in the oil and gas industry. Oil production from the Eagle Ford Shale has transformed a relatively poor region of South Texas into one of the most significant economic development zones in the nation for the past half decade. In fact, due in large part to the oil and natural gas industry, the Texas Comptroller estimates that Texas has recovered 100 percent of the jobs lost during the Great Recession and has added 597,000 above the previous peak in August 2008.

The U.S. manufacturing sector is being revitalized because of the shale energy revolution, with manufacturers gaining an edge for products made domestically from the use of affordable natural gas and associated feedstocks. The development of America’s vast shale natural gas reserves could add more than 1 million U.S. manufacturing jobs by 2025, according to PwC. A Reuters analysis indicated that low-cost natural gas made a $2.08 trillion contribution to the U.S. manufacturing sector in 2013 alone.