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A pay wall to climb

THE mining industry has long been concerned about skills shortages; perhaps it should also worry ...

MiningNews.Net

This article is 13 years old. Images might not display.

It is no longer a matter of offering a standard salary and that's the vacancy filled.

Yes, the industry is going to need many, many more skilled people.

But a challenge that may be only starting to dawn is that the challenge is greater than just opening up another school of mines, or having additional training programs for the labour force.

The challenge is in fact one of trying to come up with an entirely new formula for how mining companies engage with their staff.

(No, I do not have the answer. I just pose the problems - Stanley Baldwin was on to something when he summed up the press: "power without responsibility, the prerogative of the harlot throughout the ages".)

A recent broker report covering Norseman Gold and its gold operation in Western Australia made this point: "A key recurring problem for Norseman, as it is for other gold and nickel miners in Western Australia, is the ability to attract and retain labour, [a factor which] impacts underground operations to a greater extent than the open pit."

Ocean Equities then went on to say the company was seeking to encourage production levels from the underground mining to more normalised levels by changing remuneration packages, introducing personal incentive bonus schemes and having a more mobile workforce.

"To more normalised levels"?

Paying workers special bonuses is not a bad idea in itself, just so long as they are not seen the way many CEOs do their incentives packages - that is, "the six figure salary is for turning up but if you want me to turn this company around then we have to talk serious money".

The implication of these CEO bonuses and super top-ups and swags of options is that managers will not make the effort without them.

This is not just something that infects mining. It has corroded the whole corporate world (and spawned the Occupy Wall Street mob and its imitators).

Of course, as we all know, unless the boards of directors agree to bonuses, the managers and the skilled workers will find a better offer elsewhere.

Up and up the labour costs go.

So you have to resist a wry smile when reading a survey out of London by the Faststream Recruitment Group, coyly titled Mining Global Employment Review 2011.

It showed that about 80% of the 4200 respondents in the mining sector claimed they were planning to leave their positions within 12 months and were actively searching for a new job.

We'll get back to the details in a moment.

The other conclusion of the research was that 55% were moving for career development reasons and only 19% for money.

Yet there did not seem to be much to grumble about.

Of the 4200 respondents, 70% felt secure or very secure in their jobs, while 23% had enjoyed four or more pay rises in the previous 36 months.

Note that: four or more.

It is going to get worse from the employer point of view.

The report quotes the Perth-based Chamber of Minerals and Energy predicting Western Australia needing in additional 33,000 mine workers by the end of 2012 and a Canadian estimate that 100,000 new mine workers would be needed there by 2012.

Yet there are plenty of people interested. In late October from Queensland, the Sunshine Coast Daily reported that "almost 5000 people joined queues for jobs at a Caloundra mining and gas employment expo yesterday, with some people waiting up to an hour and a half just to get in the door"

So they want to work.

It is a relatively simple matter to hire someone with skills or who is prepared to learn. But keeping them seems quite a different proposition. That and keeping pay levels under some control is the mountain the industry has to climb.

A version of this story first appeared in the December edition of Australia's Mining Monthly

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