Weatherford: North American sector 'very' rough

As many as 10,000 jobs may be cut from payrolls as revenue losses mount for companies working in the upstream sector, services company Weatherford said.

Weatherford International, which has headquarters in Switzerland, said first quarter revenue of $2.79 billion represented a 22 percent decrease year-on-year. The decline was most severe in North America, where revenue fell 34 percent from the previous quarter.

President and Chief Executive Officer Bernard Duroc-Danner said the North American market was "very challenged" in recent quarters. At the end of the quarter, there were roughly 49,000 staff on the payroll, a 12.5 percent decline from the start of the year.

The company said it now plans to increase staff reductions by as much as 10,000, or about 18 percent of its entire workforce. Most of the layoffs may come from North American operations.

Weatherford, the No. 4 oil field services company in the world, follows its peers Halliburton, Baker Hughes and Schlumberger in trimming its payroll during a weak crude oil market.

Halliburton and Baker Hughes are negotiating a merger in an effort to streamline capital. Baker Hughes in a weekly report said the number of rigs in service worldwide fell by about 1.8 percent from March to 1,251 for the week ending April 10. In the United States, the rig count is down nearly 4 percent to 988.

Duroc-Danner said staff reductions and capital spending plans are aimed at achieving durability during the downturn.

"Our approach is to treat this down cycle as an opportunity to become a much leaner, more efficient and streamlined organization," he said.