Did the Shale Boom Save the U.S. Economy?

Would economy crater without
shale boom?
From the Brainerd Dispatch:
The U.S. economy added just 80,000 jobs in June(Mediocre Jobs Report), a third straight month of weak hiring. The unemployment rate was unchanged at 8.2 percent, but it would have been much worse without the boom in domestic oil and gas production. 
There are actual labor shortages in expanding oil and gas areas of the U.S. like North Dakota’s Bakken Shale region. There, the business activity from thousands of new fracking wells have unemployment near 3 percent. Those wells force high pressure liquids into shale layers, releasing formerly trapped oil and gas deposits. This occurs beneath a mile or more of rock layer without damage to shallow fresh water supplies. 
In northeastern Ohio, moribund since steel mills closed in the 1970s, a $650 million steel mill is being erected near Youngstown by 10 construction cranes for V&M Corporation to produce steel pipe and other equipment. The mill’s operation will create 350 long-term jobs by the end of 2012, more than doubling V&M’s local workforce. A V&M melt shop, where raw steel is produced by melting scrap in furnaces, will be the next big job creating project at that site. 
Nearby in Carroll county, a new 350 acre industrial park is ready for oil and gas related projects. The state of Ohio is expecting 200,000 new jobs by 2018 from the Utica Shale which underlies most of eastern Ohio.
Read the rest of the article here.

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