More than half of the new hires for the core industry jobs in 2021 came from outside Ohio, according to the state data. Even in ancillary industries, nearly four-tenths of new hires were from other states.
Meanwhile, the state holds clean energy companies to higher standards when it comes to sourcing local labor. Solar developers who want to qualify for certain property tax relief must provide at least 70% of a project’s jobs to Ohio residents.
- Massachusetts residents no longer have to subsidize new gas hookups
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- Trump’s EPA delays rules requiring toxic coal ash cleanup
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Not so great expectations?
Canary Media drilled further into the figures from the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services to see how employment numbers compare to those touted by fossil-fuel industry organizations.
As of 2024, the core shale-industry sectors employed almost 9,100 people. The net gain compared to 2012 was about 860 jobs. Employment in those sectors peaked in 2017 at about 16,400.
Roughly 199,000 people worked in the industry’s ancillary sectors in 2024, for a net gain of about 30,000 jobs compared to 2012. However, the Department of Job and Family Services’ reports note that those ancillary sectors support other industries as well, such as engineering services, iron and steel mills, and construction of highways, streets, and bridges.
The Ohio agency numbers fall short of the 204,000 new jobs that an industry-funded report forecast oil and gas businesses might create or support. That analysis was published in 2011, in the lead-up to the 2012 law that set up the state’s current regulatory scheme for drilling and fracking of horizontal wells.
The agency numbers are also far lower than the 79,000 direct and 375,00 total jobs the American Petroleum Institute cited in a 2021 report based on data from 2019.
A communications representative for the American Petroleum Institute declined to answer Canary Media’s questions about that report or the new research from the Ohio River Valley Institute.
A spokesperson for the Ohio Oil and Gas Association did not respond to a phone call and emails seeking comment for this story.
The cyclical boom-and-bust dynamics that often characterize oil and gas development also impact jobs, said Gilbert Michaud, an assistant professor of environmental policy at Loyola University Chicago. In contrast, utility-scale solar could be built out over time, to offer “opportunities for a more stable and consistent workforce,” he said.
An analysis prepared by Michaud and others in 2020 estimated that utility-scale solar development could provide tens of thousands of jobs over the course of a few decades if the state encouraged it. That study came out before Ohio lawmakers added extra hurdles for most utility-scale solar and wind projects in 2021.
Now federal policy has also shifted away from renewables and in favor of fossil fuels.
“While this might spur some jobs in oil and gas, it will also take jobs away from renewables, which can be built nearly anywhere, not just in places like eastern Ohio that have shale resources,” Michaud said. “It will threaten a big renewable energy pipeline that has developed over the past decade or two.”
Beaver County Blue: Voice of the 17th CD of Progressive Democrats of America 