Marcellus Shale Job Creation Continues

A recent Williamsport Sun-Gazette article gives props to the natural gas industry for being an economic boost, and keeping unemployment relatively low in Bradford County, a central hub for the Marcellus Shale gas boom.

Indeed, thanks to nifty maps from the PA Center for Workforce Information & Analysis, one can see that Bradford County has an unemployment rate a full three percentage points lower than nearby Luzerne County, which, coincidentally, no longer has any gas drilling taking place (a fact some anti-drilling activists are celebrating).

Additionally, as the Center for Workforce Information & Analysis notes in its latest briefing, total jobs in Pennsylvania grew by a scant 1 percent from November 2009 to November 2010, but jobs in mining and logging (which includes gas drilling, but not the ancillary jobs tied to the industry’s growth) grew a whopping 14 percent in that time frame.