Texas Border Business
AUSTIN – New data from the Texas Workforce Commission (TWC) indicate that upstream oil and natural gas employment grew by 1,900 in February compared to January. This is growth on top of TWC’s just-released upward revisions for 2024. February’s growth is on top of TWC’s upward revisions for 2024 and also follows the strong growth reported for January 2025.
TXOGA President Todd Staples issued the following statement:
“Reaching an unprecedented production of over 2 billion barrels of oil in 2024 was only possible because of the tremendous capabilities of the men and women who work in the oil and natural gas sector of our economy. These resilient and skilled individuals are doing more than ever before and making significant and effective environmental gains in the process.”
Since the COVID-low point of September of 2020, the industry has added 48,400 Texas upstream jobs, averaging growth of 913 jobs per month. During the same time, months with upstream oil and gas employment increases have outnumbered those with decrease by 38 to 14. These jobs pay among the highest wages in Texas, with employers in oil and natural gas paying an average salary of approximately $128,000 in 2024.
The upstream sector involves oil and natural gas extraction and excludes other industry sectors such as refining, petrochemicals, fuels wholesaling, oilfield equipment manufacturing, pipelines, and gas utilities, which support hundreds of thousands of additional jobs across Texas. The employment shown also includes “Support Activities for Mining,” which is mostly oil and gas-related but also includes some small amount of other types of mining.
