Texas lost 84,000 oil and gas jobs in just 16 months, according to the Texas Alliance of Energy Producers, which has been tracking the impact of the oil and gas bust across the state.

Karr Ingham, the petroleum economist who authors the group’s Texas Petro Index (which has also been in decline for 16 months), announced the latest data at the Texas Alliance of Energy Producers annual meeting this week in Austin.

An estimated 222,000 Texans remain on so-called “upstream” oil and gas industry payrolls – the part of the industry that includes exploration and production activity. That’s down 27.5 percent from a high of about 306,020 in December 2014.

Ingham expects tough times are still ahead in Texas oil, with more layoffs to come.

History shows that layoffs tend to continue for several months after oil has hit bottom and started to rebound.

During the low point of the last oil and gas downturn, in October 2009, there were 184,640 employees in the upstream part of the industry in Texas.

“Upstream industry employment in Texas will almost certainly continue to decline for most of the rest of the year; history suggests that employment will trough and begin to increase a good six months after prices reverse course,” Ingham said in a news release.

The number of drilling rigs working in Texas reached a milestone April 8, falling to 197, the lowest number since June 1999.

In the fall of 2014, more than 900 drilling rigs were working in Texas, with more than 100 jobs tied to each rig.

Oil prices have cratered, from $107 per barrel in June 2014 to around $43 Thursday. In January and February, the benchmark West Texas Intermediate traded below $30 a barrel.

The Railroad Commission issued just 1,594 drilling permits in first quarter 2016, which the Texas Alliance of Energy Producers said is the lowest first quarter total since it started tracking that number in January 1995.

Oil prices have come up in recent days. But Ingham is urging caution.

“First, it may or may not be the real deal; prices increased in part on the hope that some agreement might be reached between producing countries elsewhere in the world on production limitations and that’s a prickly proposition,” Ingham said. “And second, price increase now produces a change in other oilfield indicators later, and indeed most other components of the index continued to decline in March.”

Here are some other key data points from the Texas Alliance of Energy Producers: