With West Texas Intermediate below $30 a barrel and Saudi Arabia’s plans to keep pumping as much as it can for as long as it can, the U.S. oil industry is bracing for job losses that could end up in five-figure territory. “A sustained drop in oil prices would cost the sector 50,000-75,000 jobs if employment returned to its low from a few years ago,” the chief economist of PGIM Fixed Income, Nathan Sheets, told CNBC this week. The last industry downturn caused by low prices cost the U.S. oil industry—including oilfield services—as many as 200,000 jobs. That was about a third of the total workforce employed in the sector. Now, the US oil industry could be headed for a rerun. Companies, notably shale oil companies, are already beginning to trim costs in response to the oil price shock. Several companies have already announced spending cuts of between 25 […]