Even though things are bad, they can always get worse. This kind of pocket wisdom is hardly a consolation, but for the Norwegian offshore industry there is not much else to find comfort in. This summer, the analysis indicated that more than 20,000 oil jobs had disappeared in less than one year, and projections for the coming year sound strikingly similar.

"Right now we're at around 30,000 layoffs of full-time employees, and we're guaranteed to be looking at 10-20,000 new layoffs in the coming year," the head of Norwegian union Norsk Industri, Stein Lier-Hansen, tells newspaper Aftenbladet.