In a bid to bounce back from the dramatic reduction in spending by oil and gas producers due to weak prices, Halliburton Company (NYSE:HAL) HAL is permanently slashing headcount by nearly 216 at its Halliburton Energy Services plant in Carrollton, north of Dallas, TX.
This strategic move comes within eight months of the company’s announcement to retrench 350 employees at its Duncan facility in Oklahoma. During that time, the company also trimmed its executives’ income. Apart from their salary cuts, it halted certain contributions made to employee retirement accounts.
The oil industry is battered big time by the coronavirus pandemic that rattled most sectors until now. Fuel demand took a huge hit following large-scale travel constraints imposed globally. This lean patch forced operators to rein in costs significantly by suspending some of their major activities as well as laying off their workforce. While these strategic actions might improve profit levels to a certain degree, the overall sentiment surrounding the industry remains pessimistic.
The ongoing global economic downslide dented Halliburton's profits year over year. The stock price of this world's second-largest oilfield services company after Schlumberger (NYSE:SLB) SLB has shed 21.5% of value since the beginning of 2020 when crude was trading at more than $60 a barrel.
This currently Zacks Rank #3 (Hold) energy player is not the only company to economize its staff of late. In September, Shell (LON:RDSa) RDS.A too announced plans to make its 7,000-9,000 staff redundant by the end of 2022, thereby affecting 10% of its total workforce including 1,500 people who voluntarily agreed to exit the company this year. Shell expects this overhaul to deliver annual cost savings of up to $2.5 billion by 2022. You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.
Another oil supermajor and Shell’s continental rival BP plc (LON:BP). BP (NYSE:BP) announced plans to reduce nearly 10,000 positions as it aims to lower its oil and gas production volumes and focus more on expanding its renewables business.
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Schlumberger Limited (SLB): Free Stock Analysis Report
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