More evidence that it pays to be smart:
Global oil and gas job losses: 350,000 and counting
The exploration and production (E&P) sector was the second worst sufferer, registering more than 80,000 layoffs, followed by the drilling sector, which has seen more than 52,000 job cuts.
U.S.-specific data from the report shows that nearly 100,000 people lost their jobs in the oil and gas extraction and supporting segments between October 2014 and January this year. More than half of those were in Texas, according to statistics from the U.S. Bureau of Labor.
‘Blue collar’ industries such as drilling are struggling. Meanwhile, high-IQ sectors such as information technology are projected to see strong job growth (and also pay more, too):
It would seem like more than ever, coding is the ‘new literacy’.
The divergence between blue collar industries and high-IQ ones goes back to the the 80’s, with the decline of unions and then later in the 2000’s during the bursting of the housing bubble, which hurt many construction and landscaping workers. From Virtue Signaling and Status:
The latter, on the other hand, are losing their jobs, whether it’s oil falling from $100 in 2014 to $30 today, hurting lots of blue collar energy workers, or the housing bust of 2006-2009, which hurt blue collar construction workers. Or the rise of the low-paying service sector, replacing obsoleted but high-paying factory jobs. Meanwhile, high-IQ tech is doing better than ever, impervious to pretty much all macro conditions, save for a blip in 2000-2002 during the dotcom bubble or in 2008 during the recession. This dichotomy is also observed in the housing market, with real estate in high-IQ regions such as the Silicon Valley constantly making new highs, versus almost everywhere else still well-below the 2006 highs.
Snapchat is paying new recruits hundreds of thousands of dollars to work there, and competent coders in Silicon Valley can easily make six-figures. Sure beats working on an oil rig and either dying in a fire or failing off and dying of hypothermia or drowning. Over and over again in our post-2008 economy, the ‘high-IQ cornflakes‘ keep rising to the top.