A report from staffing company Swift Worldwide Resources, on the top ten highest paid contractor jobs in the oil & gas industry, found the third and fourth most highly paid contractors were in Nigeria. According to the report, the list was produced by analysing 7,500 contract positions in the oil and gas industry in 30 locations worldwide, reports allafrica.com.

The report stated: "…Nigeria [has] seen unprecedented growth in industry activity, and workers there are compensated for the risks that come with working in the more dangerous areas, accounting for the increase in salary ranges".

The report does not specify, however, whether those earning the highest wages for highly skilled technical jobs were expatriates or Nigerians.

Many view the Swift Report as a positive indicator of the health of the oil & gas industry. However, there are those who feel that Nigerians are being exploited by multinational corporations, who place local workers on contracts or hire them on a casual basis, in direct contravention with Nigeria’s labour laws.

News website allafrica.com has spoken out against what it feels in unlawful causalisation of the Nigerian oil & gas workforce: “The oil companies engage in casualisation, contract employment, or outsourcing mainly for selfish reasons. They want to cut costs by all means and maximise their profit at the detriment of their local employees who are paid a pittance without job security, compared to their compensation had they been employed as permanent staff with good conditions of service.”

“We totally condemn this practice, because it is a flagrant violation of a provision of the labour law, which states that a worker should not be employed as a casual or contract staff for more than three months after which such should be staffed or regularised. There are reported cases of Nigerians employed as contract staff for 30 years. To circumvent the law, the companies allegedly continue to engage workers on three months contract only to terminate them after the period and re-engage them repeatedly.”

The publication has called on the Nigerian Minister of Labour and Productivity to ensure the enforcement of Labour Laws against casualisation and the improper use of contract employment, not only in the oil industry but nationwide.