Talisman Energy is letting go 220 workers from its North American division and most of the cuts will impact workers in Calgary.
The layoffs will impact the company's natural gas business and means 128 people at its headquarters in Calgary have been let go.
A spokesperson for the company says the job losses are part of the company's restructuring and amount to 15 percent of the company's North American workforce.
Talisman Energy is in the middle of separating its natural gas business into separate shale and conventional gas units.
"Talisman's business is changing and today's announcement is an impact of that," says Phoebe Buckland.
"A lot of firms use a downturn as an excuse to become more efficient and streamline. This always happens and people say we want to be more lean and mean and this is what people are trying to do," says Frank Atkins, an economist from the U of C.
Shell Canada is also restructuring as part of the global economic changes. Shell tells CTV News it expects to cut 5,000 jobs worldwide.
The Petroleum Services Association says unless drilling picks up there will be even bigger job loses this spring. "In our sector we're talking up to 15,000 people and then have the drilling contractors on top of that and it's much more dramatic for them," says Roger Soucy.
Atikins agrees there will be more job losses but adds they won't be permanent losses and jobs will likely pick up elsewhere in the economy.
