Study reveals how badly frackers lie about jobs

[xchrom]

http://grist.org/news/study-reveals-how-badly-frackers-lie-about-jobs/

?w=470&h=265&crop=1

The fracking industry wouldn’t lie, would it? But how else to explain the massive discrepancies between the number of jobs that it claims to create and the number of jobs that it actually creates? Perhaps it’s just confused about what’s going on at its own operations.

Whatever the reason, the gulf between fracking propaganda and reality has been laid bare in a new report led by the Multi-State Shale Research Collaborative, a watchdog group that studies employment trends, economic development, and community impacts associated with fracking and proposed fracking in New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and West Virginia.

“Industry supporters have exaggerated the jobs impact in order to minimize or avoid altogether taxation, regulation, and even careful examination of shale drilling,” Frank Mauro, one of the authors of the report, told the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle.


For example, the report debunks industry-backed claims [PDF] that each fracking well in the Pennsylvania Marcellus Shale directly employs 31 people. From the report summary:

Between 2005 and 2012, less than four new direct shale-related jobs have been created for each new well drilled, much less than estimates as high as 31 direct jobs per well in some industry-financed studies.

[onehandle]

1. Most of the jobs they create are in advertising and PR.

Seemingly.

[CrispyQ]

5. That is a nice, subtle DUzy!

[In_The_Wind]

2. It's amazingly ugly to drive into an area where fracking rigs are up and running.

Lots of pipes. Very few humans.

[TransitJohn]

3. There are no fracking rigs.

There are drilling rigs. Hydraulic fracturing is done as part of completions after the drilling rig runs casing down hole and moves off location. Fracking used as a buzzword meaning anything oil production related is a pet peeve.

[In_The_Wind]

4. I delivered a skidder to be used in bringing natural gas up to the surface.

The entire operational crew's cars were parked in the same location where we delivered the skidder. I counted maybe two dozen cars. Lots of pipe very few employees.