NYSE-listed oil-field services company Weatherford International has announced 6,000 job cuts in the first half of 2016 in response to the continuing oil-price slump.
Weatherford, headquartered in Switzerland but with its main operational office in Houston, Texas, is one of the world’s largest oil field services providers and a major player in deepwater offshore drilling services.
The 6,000 job cuts will reduce the firm’s total workforce to 39,500 and they follow big cuts made last year
Since the start of the oil price slide in 2014 Weatherford has already shed around 20,000 jobs from a total of almost 60,000. Most of those cuts came in 2015 when 14,000 were axed.
The global company’s biggest drop in revenue has occurred in North America.
Weatherford is not alone as its biggest rivals, such as Schlumberger and Halliburton, have also let thousands of people go. In the past year the oil industry in general has shed 250,000 jobs
Weatherford, founded in Weatherford, Texas in 1941, provides products and services for drilling, evaluation, production and intervention of oil and gas wells, along with pipeline construction and commissioning.