With the oil bust in Houston, are we going to see a surge of Houstonites trying to get jobs here? (San Antonio: transplants, 2015)

[cBach]

Okay, if you've been reading the Houston forum, you hear about 9,000 Schlumburger layoffs and countless others. The greatest source of our population growth comes from DFW, Houston, and San Antonio. So, with Houston faltering and Austin only a 2.5 hour drive away from Houston, will we see a lot of Houston transplants coming over here? I realize there is not much O&G here, but some may be employed in O&G IT infrastructure, HR, etc... that would translate into a job they could find here, etc...

Any thoughts?

[ScoPro]

Who knows, but for sure we are going to see a lot of almost new Cadillac Escalades, Ford F250s, & expensive bass boats flood the marketplace as soon as the repo guys get in gear.

[Eastcoasting]

Originally Posted by ScoPro

Who knows, but for sure we are going to see a lot of almost new White Cadillac Escalades, White Ford F250s, & expensive bass boats flood the marketplace as soon as the repo guys get in gear.

Spruced that up for you a little.

[Muzzle of Bees]

Originally Posted by cBach

Okay, if you've been reading the Houston forum, you hear about 9,000 Schlumburger layoffs and countless others. The greatest source of our population growth comes from DFW, Houston, and San Antonio. So, with Houston faltering and Austin only a 2.5 hour drive away from Houston, will we see a lot of Houston transplants coming over here? I realize there is not much O&G here, but some may be employed in O&G IT infrastructure, HR, etc... that would translate into a job they could find here, etc...

Any thoughts?

What would they do here? The ones that made the big money wont be able to leverage those same skills in Austin. Austin may see some action, but I do not expect too much. Maybe the truck and general construction industries will experience some action.

[Jack Lance]

How Houston's economy performs during this "bust" is yet to be determined. If a worse case scenario happens and Houston's office market gets real cheap ask yourself how many Austin based businesses may decide to take advantage of favorable cost structures in Houston....

[cBach]

Originally Posted by Jack Lance

How Houston's economy performs during this "bust" is yet to be determined. If a worse case scenario happens and Houston's office market gets real cheap ask yourself how many Austin based businesses may decide to take advantage of favorable cost structures in Houston....

Keep dreaming

[madrone2k]

My guess is that Austin might see a modest increase (over the current amount) in the number of Houstonians moving there. Whatever the actual number of local layoffs turns out to be, it does seem plausible that people in the IT field might find Austin to have greener pastures than people in other fields would. However, like Jack, I'd be cautious about assuming we're looking at a repeat of the 80s. At this point, the recent job-creation forecasts I've seen (which admittedly could turn out to be wrong) suggest the number to fall from the 120,000-100,000 range to half that in 2015. Whether that would be enough to offset job losses remains to be seen.

Besides IT folks, Austin could see an increase in the number of senior technical people (with MS or PhD degrees) who decide to retire there. Probably not so much the kind of folk into bass boats and F-250s. Besides Austin, I already know 2 that are retiring to the California coast and 1 more considering it.

[Dport7674]

Are we calling this a 'oil bust' already?..It's more of a pause, no?

[madrone2k]

Could be. One argument goes like this: we're in a situation in which oil supply has temporarily exceeded demand by a lot. The key question is "how long does temporary last?".

Demand is less than expected because of a slower-than-expected economic recovery in Europe and slower-than-expected growth in China, et al. At the same time, supply is up in large part from increased onshore US production (fracking+horizontal drilling in shale plays).

However, those shale wells play out faster (e.g., 60-70% in the 1st year). Therefore, it is argued, if the price drop makes it uneconomic to drill new shale wells, we'll stop doing so and the oversupply will be over within a couple of years and oil prices will rebound to comfortable levels.

[love roses]

Having grown up 45 minutes from Houston, I just thought I would clarify that the term is Houstonians.