HOUSTON — States dependent on oil and gas revenue are bracing for layoffs, slashing agency budgets and growing increasingly anxious about the ripple effect that falling oil prices may have on their local economies.

The concerns are cutting across traditional oil states such as Texas, Louisiana, Oklahoma and Alaska as well as those such as North Dakota that are benefiting from the nation’s latest energy boom.

Here in Houston, which proudly bills itself as the energy capital of the world, Hercules Offshore announced that it would lay off about 324 employees who work on the company’s rigs in the Gulf of Mexico at the end of the month. Texas already lost 2,300 oil and gas jobs from October to November, according to preliminary, seasonally adjusted data released last week by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. On the same day, Fitch Ratings warned that home prices in Texas “may be unsustainable” as the price of oil continues to plummet.

In Louisiana, the drop in oil prices had a hand in increasing the state’s 2015-2016 budget shortfall to $1.4 billion and prompting cuts that eliminated 162 vacant positions in state government, reduced contracts across the state and froze expenses for items such as travel and supplies at all state agencies. Another round of reductions is expected as soon as January.

And in Alaska — where about 90 percent of state government is funded by oil, allowing residents to pay no state sales or income taxes — the drop in oil prices has worsened the budget deficit and could force a 50 percent cut in capital spending for bridges and roads. Moody’s, the credit rating service, recently lowered Alaska’s credit outlook from stable to negative.

Experts and elected officials say an extended downturn in oil prices seems unlikely to create the economic disasters that accompanied the 1980s oil bust because energy-producing states that were left reeling for years have diversified their economies. Nor are the effects on the states anything like the crises facing big oil-exporting nations such as Russia, Iran and Venezuela.

But states that have become accustomed to the benefits of energy production — budgets fattened by oil and gas taxes, ample jobs and healthy rainy-day funds — are now nervously eyeing the changed landscape and wondering how much they will lose from falling prices that have been an unexpected present to drivers across the country this holiday season.

“Our approach to the 2016 budget includes a full review of every activity in every agency’s budget and the cost associated with them,” said Kristy Nichols, chief budget adviser to Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal. “Nothing is off the table at this point.”

A study published in 2013 by the Council on Foreign Relations suggested that job losses from a sharp decline in oil prices would be largest in Wyoming, Oklahoma and North Dakota. But Louisiana, which has a smaller and less-diversified economy than Texas, is already feeling the sting of the price downturn because it relies on more oil and gas money for its operating budget. Louisiana loses $12 million for every $1 in decline in the annual average price of oil, according to Greg Albrecht, the state’s chief economist.

Gifford Briggs, vice president of the Louisiana Oil & Gas Association, said some sections of the industry were beginning to scale back as reality set in and prices dropped. Although production in existing wells is expected to continue apace in the coming months, companies are already shrinking their drilling and exploration activity, he said.

The portion of Louisiana’s budget linked to oil and gas revenue is about 13 percent, compared with 45 percent in the 1980s. The Houston region’s projected job losses in the energy industry are likely to be offset by the nearly 63,000 jobs that it is expected to add in construction, retail, health care, food services and other industries in 2015. But in Houston, one energy job has the purchasing power of three non-energy jobs, according to the Greater Houston Partnership, a regional business association.

The scale and duration of the anticipated budget woes in oil-rich states remain uncertain. Economists and industry analysts say it is unclear how low oil prices will drop and for how long.

In North Dakota, which the Bakken shale field has made the second-highest producer among oil states behind Texas, officials said a major blow to the state’s oil and gas revenues could delay onetime expenditures for highway improvement or water projects, but the state’s general operations would be relatively unscathed, since only a small portion of its oil and gas money goes toward operations.

In Texas, oil and gas loom as a defining characteristic, but the role they play in the state economy, while sizable, has diminished in recent years as other industries, such as health care, biotechnology and software, have grown. Oil and gas jobs make up only about 3 percent of nonagricultural jobs in Texas, a far lower share than government (16 percent) and education and health services (13 percent).

“I foresee Texas being the economic magnet that it is, continuing to grow and diversify its economy, so that any drop in the price of oil will be minimized,” said Greg Abbott, who will be sworn in as Texas’ governor next month. Still, the economic forecast in Texas has become a shade gloomier for the first time in years.

This month, the U.S. benchmark for crude oil, known as West Texas Intermediate, dropped below $60 a barrel for the first time in more than five years, a fast-paced collapse from June, when the price was more than $100 per barrel. The drop in oil prices from June to December has amounted to a loss of $83 million per day in potential revenue for the industry in Texas, the Greater Houston Partnership said in a recent report.

First Published: December 27, 2014, 5:00 a.m.