Schlumberger Announces Job Cuts

On the heels of the news that BJ Services is set to let 273 workers go in Shreveport next week, we find out that Schlumberger, the world's largest oilfield services company, plans to cut over 21,000 jobs.

The workforce reduction comes as the oil giant reports their worst quarterly sales in 14 years and attempts to protect their bottom line as demand for oil plummets due to the coronavirus pandemic. According to Yahoo Finance, they are reducing their workforce to pre-shale levels. Yahoo Finance goes on to say, "(Schlumber) incurred $1 billion severance costs in the quarter, in addition to another $2.7 billion of various restructuring and impairment charges." And they're not the only ones feeling the pinch. Chesapeake Energy filed for bankruptcy protection just last month.

According to today's second quarter earnings release, Schlumberger's revenue went down 28% globally and their North America revenue decreased by 48%. While we don't know exactly how many of Schlumberger's Shreveport workforce will be affected yet, we do know from the earnings call that the company is also streamlining and restructuring in multiple areas. 

Before launching into the results of the earnings call today, Schlumberger CEO Olivier Le Peuch made sure to thank they're employees saying, “Before addressing our results, I would like to pay tribute to our employees and contractors for their remarkable resilience in the face of the historic COVID-19 pandemic that confronts us all." That's small comfort when faced with the possibility of filing for unemployment.

If you'd like to read the prepared remarks from today's earnings call, it can be found here.