Abstract/Summary

The UK’s oil and gas industry is declining, in the context of net zero and depleting North Sea petroleum reserves. A ‘Just Transition’ is needed for its highly skilled workforce, who face reduced employment opportunities as their industry declines. This study explores the reality of a Just Transition – operationalised as ‘re-employment success’ (Wanberg, 2012, p377) – for workers experiencing job loss from the UK oil and gas industry. The study adopts the lens of structure and agency to understand the contextual and individual-level factors influencing their search for re-employment. Data for this qualitative study were collected via 37 semi-structured interviews with UK oil and gas workers with experience of seeking work after job loss, and industry stakeholders; and analysed using template analysis and abductive reasoning techniques. Analysis identified structural features of the UK oil and gas industry that influence access to replacement work: its boom and bust nature; its status of decline, evolution and uncertainty; and its unique culture. Within this context, individual-level resources which can enable an individual to act with agency were identified. These agentic resources were categorised as health, coping and job search resources. The importance of maintaining mental health by ‘managing the spiral’ highlights a dynamic process which can put at risk the very agentic resources needed to navigate the search for re-employment. Results were used to propose a model of acting with agency in the search for re-employment after job loss from the UK oil and gas industry. Findings were interpreted to mean that workers are not yet experiencing a Just Transition, due to low job security, lack of alternative employment opportunities and a lack of transition support. Achieving re-employment success is largely down to the individual worker, who requires a high level of agentic resources to cope with unemployment, and succeed in their search for work.