A day after learning the Williams Cos.will be sold to a company out of Texas, Chesapeake Energy announced it plans to lay off 15 percent of its workforce.
2 Works for You anchor Max Resnik caught up with Governor Fallin this week to discuss the future of Oklahoma’s energy sector. Fallin was in Broken Arrow Tuesday to deliver remarks about L-3 AMI's plan to hire more employees.
L-3 AMI, a division of L-3 Communications, is a designer and manufacturer of complete hardware systems that integrate instruments, panels, wiring, cabling, interface systems and structure into high-quality devices that meet the exacting standards of military and commercial customers worldwide.
In 2014, L-3 expanded and announced its need to hire 60 additional employees. Now, the company is hiring another 30 employees.
As L-3 employees applauded that announcement, Chesapeake Energy announced they plan to lay off 740 employees.
“We’ll power through this. We’ll make it through this. We’re certainly going to be there to support the families that have been affected by the job layoffs.”
The company says affected employees will receive up to a year's pay depending on their age, pay level and years of service. Continuing health insurance and job placement help also will be available, according to the Associated Press.
Overall, it seems that Oklahoma City has been greatly affected by the announcement, losing more than 560 people. Chesapeake still has about 4,000 employees nationwide, including about 2,500 in Oklahoma City.
Those layoffs come a day after Williams Cos. said it would be purchased for more than $32 billion, though its employees wouldn’t be impacted — for the time being.
As the energy sector hits its snag, Fallin stresses there’s plenty to celebrate — especially in Tulsa.
“There’s a report that came out just about two weeks ago that Tulsa in particular has the leading GDP growth — the leading gross domestic product growth in the state, even beating Oklahoma City, which has a very strong economy right now."
Fallin is also optimistic because there are number of job openings in the state — 68,000 according to the governor.
She says they’ll work to fill those through her program “Oklahoma Works.”
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