Profits and Pink Slips: How Big Oil and Gas Companies Are Not Creating U.S. Jobs or Paying Their Fair Share

A Natural Resources Committee Democratic staff review of recent earnings reports for the five largest investor-owned oil companies -- ExxonMobil, Chevron, BP, Shell and ConocoPhillips -demonstrates how high oil prices are translating into huge profits for these companies.

Together, the Big Five oil companies:

• Recorded $36 billion in profits in the second quarter of this year.
• Repurchased nearly $10 billion worth of their own stock in the second quarter alone, thereby boosting the value of remaining shares.
• Distributed more than $7 billion in dividend payments to their investors in the second quarter.
• Paid their executives a total of nearly $220 million in 2010.

Despite these massive profits, oil companies are not creating jobs in the United States or globally.

• Despite generating $546 billion in profits between 2005 and 2010, ExxonMobil, Chevron, Shell, and BP combined to reduce their U.S. workforce by 11,200 employees over that time.
• Just in 2010 alone, the big 5 oil companies reduced their global workforce by a combined 4,400 employees, while making a combined $73 billion in profits.