Gas Industry job creation claims are wildly inflated, according to the consumer and conservation group Food and Water Watch:

“Shale gas jobs projections do not stand up to scrutiny,” the group concluded in a report released November 15, 2011. “Empirical analyses of the actual economic impacts of shale gas development, not industry-backed projections from economic forecasting models, should be the basis of policy decision making.”[http://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/]

A recent Cornell University study concluded: “Research studies from other shale plays (Berman, 2009) and from the broader studies of natural resource dependent economies indicate that we should be cautious about expecting positive long-term outcomes (beyond 5-10 years).  Natural resource extraction has a poor record of leading to strong, diversified regional economies.  The declining productivity of some shale plays raises questions about what kind of investment in the Marcellus Shale region we can expect beyond a fairly short time frame.”

How Should We Think About the Economic Consequences of Shale Gas Drilling? Susan Christopherson and Ned Rightor, Working Paper Series, A COMPREHENSIVE ECONOMIC IMPACT ANALYSIS OF NATURAL GAS EXTRACTION IN THE MARCELLUS SHALE - Cornell University, May 2011

The Boom and Bust cycle is aptly demonstrated by the Cornell study’s diagram: