Oil states bracing for a price bust’s ripple through the economy December 27, 2014 12:00 AM By Manny Fernandez and Jeremy Alford / The New York Times
HOUSTON — States dependent on oil and gas revenue are bracing for layoffs, slashing agency budgets and growing increasingly anxious about the ripple effect that falling oil prices may have on their local economies.
The concerns are cutting across traditional oil states such as Texas, Louisiana, Oklahoma and Alaska as well as those such as North Dakota that are benefiting from the nation’s latest energy boom. Here in Houston, which proudly bills itself as the energy capital of the world, Hercules Offshore announced that it would lay off about 324 employees who work on the company’s rigs in the Gulf of Mexico at the end of the month. Texas already lost 2,300 oil and gas jobs from October to November, according to preliminary, seasonally adjusted data released last week by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. On the same day, Fitch Ratings warned that home prices in Texas “may be unsustainable” as the price of oil continues to plummet.
