Help wanted: Oil jobs

HOUSTON (CNNMoney.com) — The oil industry is on the edge of a huge labor crisis.

80% of its skilled workforce is expected to age out in the next ten years without eager, younger workers available to replace them.

“There’s a perception the industry is old, dirty,” said Pete Stark, vice president of industry relations for IHS, Cambridge Energy Research Associates’ (CERA) parent company. “It’s lost its sex appeal.”

Plus, the industry suffers from a reputation of laying off workers during periods of low oil prices, as it did in the 1980s and 1990s.

CNN