(The Advertiser) Oilfield services giants Halliburton and Baker Hughes Inc. plan thousands of layoffs in 2016, according to company leaders speaking on a conference call this week.

The two companies plan to merge; approval for their merger has come in Canada, Colombia, Ecuador, Kazakhstan, South Africa and Turkey, but not yet in the United States.

Reuters reported this week that Halliburton laid off 1,000 workers in the Eastern Hemisphere in the fourth quarter of 2015 in response to drilling slowdowns brought on by sinking commodity prices for oil and gas. Baker Hughes last year said it had plans to lay off 7,000 employees.

Halliburton said it may close some sites in the United States, where the company gets about half of its global revenue, Reuters said.

On the Gulf Coast, Halliburton operates offices in Houston, Lafayette and New Orleans. In Lafayette, it operates at three locations. Last year, the company employed about 1,000 people across Acadiana.

Halliburton opened a $65 million, 200,000-square-foot tools manufacturing plant in Lafayette in 2012.

Halliburton is heavily invested in shale drilling — Louisiana has shale plays in the Tuscaloosa Marine in eastern Louisiana and in the more active Haynesville Shale in northwestern Louisiana.