Sobey said as workers move to the booming regional resource areas to chase the increased incentives, training and credentials, industries supporting the mining sector were suffering.

“It has been a gradual thing, but in the last three to five years we have been really noticing the resource boom has been drawing heavily out of the skills availability, particularly in Queensland’s engineering and industrial sector,” Sobey said.

Following massive growth in the resource sector, Sobey said mining companies were now more accepting of base trade skills because of the high demand.

As boilermakers, welders and fitters take the opportunity to expand their experience by entering the mining industry, other engineering and industrial sectors are losing their skills base.

“A lot of the industries that support the mining sector are suffering, especially in engineering workshops in places like Mackay and Gladstone,” Sobey said.

As far as strategies are concerned, Sobey said a lot of the supporting industries are now looking at temporary work visas to try and bring people in from overseas.

But while the temporary visa may be a good opportunity for the supporting industries, Sobey said it was probably not as useful to the mining industry itself.

“As far as the ability for the mining sector to utilise the visas, they’re probably going to be faced with more cultural issues – it’s not as easy to assimilate into a small mining town or camp than a city plant or factory.”

Sobey predicted that while pay incentives were attracting people to the mining industry now, it would not be enough to attract and retain workers into the future.

“The mining industry will have to up the ante on training and skills development to bring newcomers up to standard and add to their skills base.”

Sobey said a good reputation in occupational health and safety practices would also continue to be a big drawcard for mining companies.

“I’m sure when people talk about working in mining it goes through their head that it’s riskier than working in a factory or a plant. The revolution of these companies to ensure they are up to date with the best OHS procedures is a big factor,” he said.

As a labour hire company, Sobey said Trojan Workforce plays an important role in matching a client company to the prospective employees best suited to its organisation.

As the resources boom shows no obvious signs of slowing, Sobey said communicating a mining company’s ethos, values, methods and culture to the marketplace was increasingly instrumental to matching it with the right employees.

“We provide an important service for not only our many clients, but also to the job seekers, which delivers better value for the client in being able to have some longevity and a better strike rate in terms of their employees,” he said.