Oil patch pumps economy, but many jobs go unfilled

WOODWARD, Okla. – The local prison is so short on guards that inmates can sometimes just walk away. A gas station barely has enough cashiers to keep up with the trucks filling the parking lot. And “help wanted” signs seem to hang from every restaurant and shop.

Yet almost no one is interested in the jobs.

This is the flip side of the nation’s oil and natural gas boom. Although the expansion of drilling has breathed economic life into many small Oklahoma towns, the lucrative opportunities are also drawing people away from traditional service-sector jobs and even once-coveted state positions.

The result: Many businesses and government agencies now struggle to find enough workers. Most able-bodied people can double or triple their income in the oil patch.

“If you can walk and breathe out here, you can get a good job,” said LaVern Phillips, president of the Industrial Foundation in Woodward. The county’s unemployment rate hovered around 3 percent in June, 5 percentage points lower than the national average. In some nearby counties, the rate has dipped below 2 percent.

In towns like Woodward, which is home to dozens of oil and gas companies, housing is scarce, hotels are booked solid and vacant jobs are everywhere.

“Everybody is having a tough time hiring,” Phillips said. “It’s a good problem to have.”

But it hasn’t been good for the minimum-security state prison in nearby Fort Supply. Eight inmates have escaped since January, more than all of last year, and prison officials say low staffing levels are at least partially to blame.

With no fence around the perimeter and just 54 officers to watch more than 1,000 inmates around the clock, a prisoner can simply wait for the overworked guards to be distracted and make the short 30-yard walk to a nearby highway.

“I could hire 17 correctional officers today if I could get them to walk through the door,” said William Monday, the prison’s deputy warden.

When Monday started working at the prison six years ago, job applicants were looking for a career with good benefits and a state pension after 20 years.

“I could pull a register and get four or five guys to interview,” he said. “Over the last three years, I’ve got more vacancies than I have people to interview.”

A starting correctional officer makes $11.82 per hour, but jobs in the oil field start at close to $20 per hour, and without the extensive background check required of prison workers, Monday said.

“We’re competing with convenience stores for workers,” Monday said.

Sam Jones, the prison’s security chief, said he’s lost two officers to jobs in the energy industry in just the past few months, including a 10-year veteran who worked as a supervisory sergeant.

Oklahoma is one of several states, including North and South Dakota, that has enjoyed a boom in the energy sector driven in large part by new and improved drilling techniques such as horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing, which cracks open fissures in rock formations to retrieve oil and gas.

Woodward, with 12,000 residents at last count, is the largest population center in a nine-county area of gently sloping prairies dotted with oil rigs, wind turbines and one-stoplight towns.

At the local Dairy Queen, owner Kenny Vassar is considering scaling back the hours the store is open because he can’t hire enough workers to cover all the shifts.

“I never dreamed we’d have to offer a sign-on bonus to work here,” said Vassar, who gives employees an extra $200 after three months.