Ben Casselman reports:

The indestructible "blue jobs" the energy industry crowed about earlier this month are quickly turning pink - as in pink slips.

Happy days (AP) Baker Hughes Inc. is cutting 1,500 employees, the Houston Chronicle reported this morning. That's nearly 4% of the oilfield service company's global workforce.

The move comes after similar announcements by larger rivals Schlumberger Ltd.which said last week it was laying off 5,000 workers around the worldand Halliburton Co., which said Monday that it's cutting an unspecified number of employees. ConocoPhillips is also cutting 1,350 jobs.

The job cuts aren't hard to explain. Oil prices have crashed from $145 a barrel last summer to about $45 today, and natural-gas prices aren't any better. U.S. oil and gas producers are slashing spending at a furious pacethey've laid down more than 500 drilling rigs since September, and analysts expect that many more to fall idle before activity hits bottom. Those rigs, by the way, employed some 14,000 people, according to the Land Rig Newsletter.