The greater Houston area will add 29,700 jobs in 2017, according to projections by the Greater Houston Partnership. However, job gains will largely be confined to industries that do not pay as well as the energy sector, which will continue to shed workers, the business advocacy association said in a report. The GHP released its yearly employment forecast on Friday after a panel discussion with business leaders from the banking, health care, energy and real estate industries. When it came time for questions from the audience, most people wanted to talk about the energy sector. Oxy Oil and Gas President Joseph Elliott told the audience that he believes oil prices will start 2017 at around $49 per barrel and climb to about $54 per barrel by the end of the year. “2017 will see a slow increase in oil prices,” he said. A common topic discussed was technology, and panel members echoed each other in saying that technology plays a key role in their respective industries, although often in different ways and with different effects. For example, Elliott said that technological advancements have greatly reduced costs in the energy sector, but according to Dr. Marc Boom, CEO of Houston Methodist Health, advancements in tech actually can drive up the costs of health care. Boom gave the example of how advancements have radically transformed heart valve replacement surgery, saying that even though a patient no longer needs to recover in the hospital for 10 days, the high cost of new artificial heart valves far outweigh any savings the hospital would see from needing to provide less care. Meanwhile, in the banking sector, technology’s mere presence is making it more difficult to attract new talent, according to Wells Fargo Executive Vice president Jonathan Homeyer. “The biggest threat to banking is the talent drain to other industries,” he said. “Banking is not as sexy as working for Google or Facebook.” For Elliott, advancements in technology have been a reason for hope as his industry continues to contend with historically low oil prices. “Data analytics is in its infancy in the oil and gas industry,” Elliott said. “We can predict things now that we never had any idea we could predict. It has a huge impact on the costs of developing reserves. Innovation is driving our future.” Also on the panel was Richard Campo, CEO of Camden Property Trust, who discussed apartment rental trends that see people looking for less space, but more amenities. “Millenials aren’t having kids until later in life,” he said. “They don’t have kids; they have dogs so we’ve put in dog parks, dog-wash stations. Dogs are big deals.” The audience was polled several times during the event. Asked to compare their financial situation to what it was in December 2014, 49 percent of respondents said they are in better shape, 16 percent answered worse shape with the remaining 35 percent responding to be the same. Asked their opinion on Houston’s economic outlook since last year, 75 percent said it has improved, 13 percent said it worsened, and 12 percent said they saw no change.