Another large oil company cuts jobs

Oil boomtown on the brink?
Oil boomtown on the brink?

The plunge in oil prices has caused yet another industry giant to cut back.

Weatherford International (WFT), which runs drilling and other oil operations, said it is cutting 5,000 jobs.

Those include both oil field positions and support roles, and nearly all are in the Western Hemisphere.

Savings will amount to $350 million, the company said late Wednesday.

Geneva-based Weatherford is just the latest oil firm to cut back as oil prices have tumbled 50% in the past year. In recent days, crude oil prices have popped back a little from a low of $47.36 a barrel to just over $49 Wednesday.

Halliburton (HAL) is cutting 1,000 jobs, Schlumberger (SLB) 9,000.

BP (BP) is slashing spending by $1 billion and Royal Dutch Shell (RDSA) by $15 billion over three years and ConocoPhillips (COP) is also cutting back. Experts at Citi (C) warned prices haven't bottomed out yet.

Related: How the oil boom and collapse changed the face of small-town North Dakota

About 40%, or 21,000, U.S. job cuts in January were due to falling oil prices, according to the workforce analysts at Challenger, Gray and Christmas. Most were positions cut from within the energy industry, though the report warned the job cuts could ripple outwards.

"The economies throughout the northern United States that have been thriving as a result of the oil boom could experience a steep decline in employment across all sectors, including retail, construction, food service and entertainment," said CEO John Challenger.

Related: Oil boomtown: 'We could see 20,000 layoffs by June'

--CNN's Dave Alsup contributed to this report

Correction: An earlier version of this story misspelled the name of the company.

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