Newspaper Article Asks: What Happened to the Jobs Boom We Were Promised from Fracking? [View all]

[JPZenger]

http://www.timesonline.com/news/energy/what-boom-industry-pundits-claim-thousands-of-jobs-will-be/article_8ec3ff50-6e38-516a-b7a1-d7b758801d20.html

Excellent article. Excerpts:

The state lost 5,800 jobs last year, ranking 49th in the nation for job creation. The latest government data shows that Marcellus shale development brought about 6,362 jobs annually to the state, which accounts for less than 0.5 percent of the workforce. If the out-of-state license plates on energy company trucks are any evidence, there's seems to be a good deal of imported labor working in the Marcellus shale region.

...So where is the industry getting their numbers?... “(Groups like) the Marcellus Shale Coalition exists for a booster for the industry, creating a positive public presence and also advocating for industry and state legislators,” Price said. “When you see … estimates, especially when they come from an industry group like this one, they are often done in a way to help with the boosterism, not with an eye of what is going on -- more with an eye of we need to sell this industry.”

....He also doesn’t put much stock in the jobs created by what the Department of Industry and Labor calls ancillary industries, which accounts for more than 214,000 of more than 245,000 jobs some say the Marcellus has created. “I have no confidence that the ancillary industries are capturing anything,” he said.