Chevron Corp. confirmed late Tuesday it is laying off about 1,500 employees and 600 contractors across the organization, with most of the job losses affecting Houston.

“In light of the current market environment, Chevron is taking action to reduce internal costs in multiple operating units and the corporate center,” spokeswoman Melissa Ritchie told NGI. “These initiatives, which are currently underway, are focused on increasing efficiency, reducing costs and focusing on work that directly supports business priorities.

“Efforts in our corporate center are targeting cost reductions of approximately $1 billion. Additional cost savings are expected to be achieved across the enterprise.”

The job cuts affect the 24 groups that comprise the corporate center, Ritchie said. Of these, about 270 are existing vacant positions that won’t be filled. Another 600 staff augmentation contractors also are being let go across the company.

About 950 job losses have been announced for Houston, with 500 position reductions at headquarters in San Ramon, CA. Another 50 position reductions are international.

“Initiatives are currently underway in the corporate center and will continue over the coming months with the goal of completing the majority of employee reductions by mid-November with cost saving initiatives in place by the first quarter of 2016,” Ritchie said.

The number of layoffs is pummeling the oil and gas industry across North America (see Shale Daily, June 16). Earlier this month, Halliburton Co. and Baker Hughes Inc., which are merging, separately disclosed in filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission that they have increased the number of people they are laying off.

Halliburton said it has reduced its workforce by 16% at the end of June, bringing its total job losses to about 12,800. At the end of December, the company had 80,000 employees. In April Halliburton said it had cut about 9,000 jobs, or around 10% of the global headcount (see Shale Daily, April 20).

The reductions were made, said Halliburton officials, “to help mitigate the current market conditions that we are experiencing. We anticipate that these collective actions will result in additional cost savings in the second half of 2015.”

Baker said in its filing it had reduced its headcount by 13,000 since the end of last year, which brings its total job losses to around 49,000 at the end of June. In April, the company reduced its workforce by about 10,500 (see Shale Daily, April 21).

Weatherford International LLC last week said it was laying off another 1,000 people, mostly U.S. support staff (see Shale Daily, July 24). A few months ago, the operator issued layoff notices to around 10,000 people, which reduced its staff by about 18%. The latest reductions bring the workforce to around 39,000.