Does the high attrition matter? To workers yes, to the company, probably not. After 38 years at XOM I rode some bo-m and bust cycles. During the busts there would be layoffs and high attrition. With the brain drain and low morale of the overloaded survivors, we wondered if the company cared or could even survive. But with the next bo-m came raises and increased hiring, and the good times were back. Is this time going to be any different?
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Cyclic at the global scale, but a secular shift away from North American oil & gas at the national scale.
American employees, better hold on to yer hats. The ride is about to get a whole lot rougher.
It’s not so much the attrition that matters, but what causes it. If the OP has been here for 38 years he should know that Exxon was ruthless during downturns but despite all the bloodletting they still preserved a core of technical experience and expertise, which allowed them to take advantage of the switch to the next upturn. They also maintained (for the survivors of layoffs) the path to full, 60+ yo retirement.
This time, both of these are gone, which is completely unprecedented. On top of that, Dallas is forcing upon everybody this demented idea of 8% PIP for the long term, which is absolutely useless, a deadly unforced mistake which is to a large extent the reason for attrition. If they need to reduce numbers, one big or two successive layoffs would have been far less damaging.
Add to this an underperforming upstream portfolio, no skills left to replace it (Guyana can’t cover everything), and not even money to do it.
Attrition in the mid-‘90s was very different, it was about chasing better opportunities in a great environment for O&G and giving the finger to the stingy Exxon. Today it’s about saving your life by jumping off the sinking ship, both at the company and at the industry level.
Despite all the talk about energy transition, the industry might be around for a while, but EM is not only behind everybody, it’s also busy drilling holes in the hull of its ship.
Yes, it’s different than before - it might just be the end.
There are still some cyclic aspects at play here, but there are blindingly obvious fundamental shifts in the energy market occurring as well, and it is incredibly telling when we hear experienced folks not recognize how this is actually a bit different this time
I can only speak for Upstream. We have very few assets left to work on. Most stuff is mature and some are even worked in KL and India. I don't see much in the pipeline. Just seems like we have still too many people for the assets and activity levels planned. I really think the company is shrinking and so must the workforce.
Yes. Different. Exxon’s glory days are long past.