Unlike the finance and IT, offshore oil rig jobs, will be popular this coming decade. It's known that some of the offshore oil rig companies say that they're idling their offshore oil rigs and laying off offshore oil rig workers, but it's offset by other oil rig companies, which are currently hiring offshore drilling workers to their new offshore oil rigs.
Is there any difference between these offshore oil rig companies? On one side, a lot of the offshore oil rig companies announcing lay-offs are publicly-listed companies - and they announce lay-offs is a classic technique to keep their share prices from sinking too much. On the other side privately-held offshore oil rig companies, use recessions as a good chance to leap-frog ahead of their offshore oil rig competition. That's the kind of a strategy that conservative investors like Warren Buffet usually use to make themselves billionaires (which is some kind of a skill). That's why there are still offshore oil rig jobs, which are available, if you only know where to search for.
When is a word about the offshore oil and gas industry, we may divide it into 3 different fields:
Upstream - which is exploring and drilling for oil
Midstream - refine and transport the oil
Downstream - sell and distribute the oil
The biggest need for skilled offshore oil rig workers in the Upstream field. According to the information from the April meeting of the American Association of Petroleum Geologists, graduate students (with Masters degrees and PhD degrees) were being hired with salaries starting from 80,000 US dollars to 110,000 US dollars. The great question is why? Because a lot of the offshore oil fields today are growing old and production is past its peak. Offshore oil rig companies need to find new oil fields fast, and they need younger geologists in order to replace their retiring geologists, many of whom were hired in the 1970s. In the long run, demand for offshore oil geologists with the training to prospectfor oil is going to remain high - after all, out of 20,000 geology undergraduates, only 2,800 pass their Bachelors degree at the end of 4 years of study. Given this report by the American Geological Institute, it is still worth while to study Geology in university if you have the brains for it.
If you're less academically inclined and you would like a more rugged lifestyle, you could want to start out as a roustabout offshore oil rig worker. That's a good time for disadvantaged youths and an offshore oil rig job with no experience - the U.S. Department of Labor has a JobCorp program where they work with colleges and industry in order to secure relevant offshore oil rig job training. Officially, a roustabout oil rig worker is a laborer - but who cares? You are able to earn up to 45,000 US dollars a year, working just 6 months every year. With 2 decades offshore oil rig job experience, your salary goes up to 55,000 US dollars. Comparethis to a construction laborers salary is 24,000 US dollars.
Another good choice is to get in with a trade or craft on the offshore oil rigs. An oil rig welder with the relevant certifications is able to make up to 62,000 US dollars a year. An offshore oil rig also needs mechanics, electricians, cooks and nurses, so these are also good qualifications to earn as offshore oil rig workers. The great advantage of these support oil rig job vacations is that you are able to take your skills elsewhere if the offshore drilling oil industry ever goes into a real slump.
There are a lot of entry-level offshore oil rig jobs that don't need a degree to get the oil rig job. You might get in as a roustabout or a tradesman like an electrician or mechanic on the offshore oil rigs.