A problem for the U.S. shale oil and gas industry that analysts and observers have warned about for a long time has materialized: there is a shortage of workers. According to one service provider for E&Ps, trucker jobs remain vacant even with an annual paycheck of $80,000 , which is certainly a big change from a couple of years ago when layoffs were sweeping through the shale patch. This shortage could dampen the prospects of not just shale producers, who are eager to ramp up production as quickly as possible and take advantage of higher international oil prices, but it will also seriously hamper the recovery of the oilfield services segment, which has been hit harder than E&Ps by the price crash. We wrote earlier this year how oilfield service providers are starting to get back at producers with higher fees for their services, to make up for the […]