Q4 2025 Insights
Across the energy industry's diverse sectors, the workforce sentiment on Reddit reveals a complex picture marked by widespread burnout, career transition challenges, and a significant pay disparity debate between traditional and emerging fields. A general sense of being overwhelmed is a dominant theme, with many workers across various industries, including energy, reporting high levels of stress due to increasing workloads, resource shortages, lean teams, and general economic anxiety. This pervasive burnout is not limited to any single energy segment, suggesting systemic pressures are a major factor in the current employee experience.
Workers in the traditional fossil fuel sector, particularly oil and gas, often express a deep dissatisfaction stemming from perceived wage stagnation or cuts in recent years, despite what they see as record company profits. The appeal of high-paying, less formally-educated roles in the oil field is dwindling for some, as job security has decreased and the intensive, long-distance camp work required for many positions no longer justifies the compensation compared to local, full-time jobs. This loss of competitive pay alongside zero job security has led many to feel that the "math no longer works out" for a career in this sector. For those considering a pivot, the prospect of transitioning to clean energy is met with significant apprehension, as they recognize that their highly specialized technical knowledge, honed over years, may not be directly transferable to renewables. Furthermore, clean energy jobs often require relocation and are perceived to offer lower starting wages compared to their historical earnings, especially in the trades, creating a major financial barrier to a career change.
The renewable energy and utility sectors are experiencing substantial job growth, which is seen as a positive sign, but this boom introduces its own challenges. While the clean energy field is attracting new talent, particularly younger workers interested in energy modeling, finance, and data science, there is a clear sentiment that wages are lower than equivalent roles in fields like finance or software, particularly in expensive, high cost of living areas. Mid-career salary ceilings are a point of frustration for some technical professionals, causing many to consider moving into corporate management, job hopping, or pivoting to other high-earning industries to advance their financial standing. Furthermore, the hiring process for clean energy is described as difficult, with a perceived lack of clear pathways for both experienced engineers and trade workers, and a concern that much-needed positions remain unknown or inaccessible to the very low-income workers who might benefit from them. The utilities sector, while growing, is also dealing with the dual pressures of an aging workforce and the immense task of grid modernization and expansion to support the clean energy transition, which is creating a high demand for skilled engineers and construction workers in areas like transmission and substations.
A prevailing trend across the entire industry is that job satisfaction is now a factor of survival, not just progress. Many workers are actively exploring new opportunities, ranging from seeking niches within their current field, such as becoming an indispensable expert in a lesser-known technical area, to pursuing career pivots entirely. For those who remain, job security is frequently linked to management, specialized high-demand finance/development roles (like project finance or tax equity in renewables), or essential skilled trades. The political landscape and policy instability are also repeatedly cited as a source of anxiety, particularly in the renewable sector, where shifts in governmental support are seen as an immediate risk to job stability. The overall sentiment is that while the energy sector is undergoing a massive transformation with many opportunities, workers often feel unsupported, overworked, and undervalued in the face of these changes, forcing them to be highly proactive in managing their career trajectory to ensure long-term financial stability.
August 2025
It all begins with an idea.
Employee sentiment in the energy industry, particularly for oil and gas, is marked by a deep-seated apprehension. Discussions on social media professional forums reveal a sense of uncertainty and anxiety over job security due to ongoing layoffs and company-wide restructuring efforts. While there is an acknowledgment that the pay can be a significant draw, a recent posts highlight the emotional toll of working away from family, a common reality in the field. This sentiment is often balanced by a feeling that the high pay is a necessary trade-off for the demanding and often unstable nature of the work.
The energy sector's employment landscape shows a mixed picture. According to the Energy Workforce & Technology Council, the energy services sector experienced a slight decline in employment in July, losing 1,852 positions, reflecting a minor re-calibration. This comes amidst a broader cooling of the U.S. labor market. However, there are significant shifts in the types of jobs being created and eliminated. A major news item in the last month was BP's announcement of an expanded round of layoffs, with plans to cut up to 6,200 office jobs as part of a cost-cutting reset. Notably, this restructuring is accompanied by a strategic pivot away from renewables to focus on traditional oil and gas production, a move that could shape employment trends in the coming months.