Baker Hughes pink slips are starting to add up. The latest casualties are the 54 employees who will be out of work when Baker Hughes permanently closes its office in Bryan, TX.
Since the first of the year, Baker Hughes has closed other Texas locations including operations in Mineral Wells (110 employees), Kilgore (58) and Alice (51).
Related: Energy Giants Announce Layoffs
Baker Hughes representatives continue to say that job cuts are part of a company wide workforce reduction of an estimated 7000 workers in order to minimize costs during this downturn in oil prices. Also at play is Baker Hughes’ upcoming merger with Halliburton, where it is likely that both companies will combine operations and eliminate redundancies.
Related: Halliburton to Merge With Baker Hughes
The Houston Chronicle reported in December that the combined company expects to make $2 billion in cuts, with most of the job loses coming from operations.
“We don’t want to be insensitive to the uncertainty and acknowledge that the fact that anytime you have institutions of this size coming together there will be some adjustments, but I think it would be premature to speculate.”