The December numbers for employment came out and I thought we would look at the mining category (which includes logging) against the West Texas Intermediate crude price per barrel. What we see is the following:

ND mining/logging employment and West Texas Intermediate Crude Price per barrel (Source: BLS & EIA)

What does this tell us? I think it is an argument that oil employment is following a threshold process. Once the price reaches a certain level we increase employment, after a period of time perhaps. This process likely takes place both as prices rise and as they fall. I’ll be conducting some statistical analysis to determine the exact nature of this, as well as some other graphical analysis in future posts.

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