Oil prices apparently can't stop falling, and how this ongoing crash will affect the broader economy is one of the biggest questions out there today.
A research note from Deutsche Bank points out that, despite local employment booms in major US shale areas like North Dakota and Texas, the oil and gas industry actually are a pretty tiny part of the overall labor market. From the note:
"Only 1.4% of the workforce is employed in energy-related industries. Moreover, this includes people who are employed at gasoline stations. Excluding gas station employees, oil and gas sector jobs only account for 0.8% of the labor market...our best guess is that lower energy prices will not derail overall job growth in any meaningful way because other sectors of the economy, such as construction, are likely to be meaningfully larger contributors to growth this year."
Deutsche Bank also included a chart showing the energy share of the labor market since 2000:
Deutsche Bank