HOUSTON – Oilfield services giant Schlumberger announced thousands of layoffs across the company in response to the downturn related to oil prices.
Local 2 News first told you about the pending job cuts on Tuesday.
A statement from Schlumberger read, in part: "Reducing staff numbers and reviewing future staffing requirements has become necessary in today's lower commodity pricing environment and anticipated lower exploration and production spending in 2015."
In its fourth quarter report, the company wrote, "...Schlumberger decided to reduce its overall headcount to better align with anticipated activity levels for 2015. Schlumberger recorded a $296 million charge associated with a headcount reduction of approximately 9,000."
It's unclear where those job cuts will be coming from and how many will affect Houston based employees, but business owners around Schmlumberger's headquarters on San Felipe are starting to get nervous.
Less workers means less people shopping in the stores and eating in the restaurants.
"Of course," said Nancy Shum. "It would affect a lot of businesses."
Shum and Joseph Ng manage Chang's Chinese Restaurant on San Felipe near Bering.
Schlumberger brings them a large lunch crowd and they even cater a lot of corporate meetings.
"They order a lot, big orders like catering for 50 people or 30 people," said Ng.
He worries that may stop if the company is cutting back and then his business will suffer. Â
"Business down, but our rent remain the same. We still have to pay the same thing."
The company is the latest to cut jobs within the energy industry, following Halliburton, Apache and Swift Energy.