On May 18, 2020, the BW Research Partnership, an economic research firm, released a report that found that the coronavirus pandemic has eliminated five years of job growth across the U.S. energy sector.[1] Since the beginning of the pandemic, the energy sector has lost 1.3 million jobs and nearly a million of those were lost in April 2020 alone. According to the report, job losses in the fuels sector made up about 10% of the cuts in April 2020. The motor vehicles industry was the hardest hit in April 2020, with 340,000 jobs being cut in April 2020. Coal mining (including electric power generation) experienced 4,000 job losses in April 2020, bringing the total losses to more than 9,000 jobs since the beginning of the pandemic. For oil and gas drilling and refineries, 40,000 jobs were cut in April 2020 and nearly 90,000 jobs have been lost since the beginning of March 2020.

Out of all the state, California has taken the greatest hit, losing more than 124,000 jobs since the onset of the pandemic. Texas and Michigan also had high job losses with 78,700 and 64,500, respectively. The report also notes that despite only making up 14% of the industry, Latino workers made up 23% of total job losses.

[1] https://bwresearch.com/covid/docs/BWResearch_EnergyJobsAprilCOVID-19Memo_05-18-2020.pdf