Shale Gas on the Western PA Hot Jobs List, Solar Not Hot

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Which jobs are hot and which are not? That’s the question raised in a recent Pittsburgh Tribune-Review article. At number three on the “hot” list is the natural gas industry.

The boom in the Marcellus shale industry has created thousands of jobs. State statistics show the Pittsburgh region in October had 8,500 mining and logging jobs, including those in natural gas and oil, which was 1,000 more than the year before. Gas producer Talisman Energy Inc. in Cranberry said it would add as many as 165 jobs. Halliburton Inc. of Houston, Texas, said it would create 865 jobs in Pennsylvania. Weatherwood International, which provides gas field services from offices in Leetsdale, Canonsburg and Elderton, announced it would create about 200 jobs.*

Oh, and number three on the “not hot” list? Solar Power Industries.

Solar Power Industries fell victim to the woes of the solar power industry — stiff competition from China undercutting the market for its U.S.-made silicon wafers and solar cells used to make modules that capture energy from the sun to create electricity. The company in June said it was cutting 176 workers from its plants in Rostraver and at the former Sony Technology Corp. plant in East Huntingdon. Of the 75 workers remaining, several were placed on partial work weeks.*

*Pittsburgh Tribune-Review (Feb 26, 2012) – The jobs that are hot, and not, in Western Pennsylvania

One Comment

  1. This just intensifies Obama’s and the green’s aversion to fossil fuels. They were for natural gas before they were against it.