Imperial Oil’s plans to cut 20 per cent of its workforce by the end of 2027 comes as part of a wider trend of industry job cuts as producers look to boost efficiencies amid lower oil prices and the availability of new technology.
The company said in its Monday announcement that about 900 corporate positions would be lost, mostly in Calgary.
It follows Cenovus Energy Inc. confirming layoffs in May, and Suncor Energy Inc. cutting about 1,500 staff in a streamlining push in 2023.
“I think (Imperial’s move is) probably reflective of a broader push by energy companies to find efficiencies,” said Lance Mortlock, EY Canada managing partner in industrials and energy.
He said efforts to streamline operations come amid languishing oil prices, technological availability and unfavourable policies.
“We’ve had a number of problematic policies and regulations that have made investment and growth in our oil and gas sector extremely difficult,” he said.
“When you have an economic and a policy environment that pushes investors away … the focus then shifts to, OK, I’m not going to grow the asset, how do I sweat the asset?”
Many of those policies have been aimed at limiting emissions of the oil and gas sector to address climate change, but Mortlock said he still hopes to see a better balance struck between environmental and economic priorities.
Companies have always pushed for efficiencies, but technology is making those efforts much more possible.
The oilsands industry has for years been moving to self-driving trucks in mining operations, for example, but the growth of artificial intelligence means a wide swath of jobs could be increasingly automated.
An EY report from 2020 predicted that by 2040, drilling and equipment operators as well as trades and technicians in the industry could see a more than 60 per cent drop in employment because of AI. The report said that the more technical the job, the more at risk it is because of its predictability.
The report predicted many of the jobs will be phased out through natural attrition rather than direct cuts.
Employment in the oil and gas industry has already been on a downward trend, at least when measured compared with output.
A report last month from the Pembina Institute found that before the 2014 oil price collapse, there was a peak of 38 direct oil and gas jobs per thousand barrels produced. As of 2023, that had fallen by 43 per cent to 22 direct jobs per thousand barrels.
The report said a focus on maximizing returns over big new sources of production, along with automation and offshoring engineering and design work, means there will likely be fewer new jobs created going forward even when production does increase.
“A decade of aggressive cost-cutting has caused a significant – and so far sustained – decline in jobs across the oil and gas sector, while production has increased,” said Janetta McKenzie, director of oil and gas at Pembina Institute in a statement.
She said the trend should have policy-makers rethinking how much the oil and gas sector should be considered a guaranteed path to prosperity.
Imperial said it would be centralizing corporate and technical activities in global business and technology centres, leveraging the infrastructure of its majority shareholder ExxonMobil Corp.
While automation and other technological advances are putting downward pressure on jobs, efforts to boost production could limit the effects, said Mortlock.
“Talking about growth in the spirit of keeping jobs flat might be more realistic than growth in the spirit of increasing the number of jobs in the oil and gas sector.”
Some, however, still see jobs growth ahead for the industry.
Careers in Energy, a division of Energy Safety Canada, forecasted in a report early last year that it expects the energy industry to add between 41,600 and 46,500 direct jobs between 2022 and 2035.
The report includes conventional oil and gas jobs as well as in areas of emissions reductions like carbon capture and storage.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 30, 2025.
Companies in this story: (TSX:IMO)
