Creating Jobs by Drilling

Fox Business – The U.S. oil and natural-gas rush will add 1.7 million jobs this year at wages on average of about $35 an hour, “dramatically higher” than the average $23 an hour for other jobs in the economy, says consultant IHS in a new report.

IHS also forecasts the number of U.S. jobs in this booming industry will swell to 2.5 million by 2015, and to nearly 3.5 million jobs in 2035, noting this will be “high-quality and high-paying” work paying more than manufacturing jobs.

And it’s not just jobs working on oil rigs. The U.S. oil and gas industry is creating onshore manufacturing jobs to make, say, drilling equipment, as well as computer-technology services for things like seismic assays, and legal and consulting jobs. To read the report, click here.

And IHS forecasts unconventional oil and gas will add $237 billion to U.S. GDP in 2012, increasing to $475 billion in 2035.