A greater number of “cleanskins” – people from outside the mining industry – will pose challenges for mining companies seeking to manage safety, productivity and training and career development, they told International Longwall News.

James Cadden, founding principal, and Scott Roberts, managing principal of Cadden Crowe,

said new projects expected to become operational would suck in labour nationally, from outside the industry, and ultimately from around the world.

“There is already significant transfer of employment of skilled people between the hard rock mining sector and soft rock mining sector,” Cadden said. “It’s like a case of robbing Peter to pay Paul.

“The situation going forward is there are lots of greenfield sites coming onstream as well as further extensions of brownfield sites that will need operators, trades personnel and professional staff from outside the industry.

“This organic growth of operations will add pressure on demand for skilled operators, and more and more cleanskins from outside the industry will be needed to meet the demand.”

Rio Tinto revealed that Clermont – its newest Queensland coal mine – attracted more than 10,000 applicants seeking employment in the mining industry. About 208 candidates were shortlisted and assessed for a total of 52 roles at Clermont, which will become operational this year.

The roles were advertised in December 2009 and called for a mix of people with experience and those who are new to the industry. Clermont general manager Dave Lamb said around 7000 applications were received just for these 52 roles.

“Rio Tinto Coal Australia is a large employer in this state, and we know from first-hand experience that employment in the mining industry is very keenly sought after,” Lamb said.

Rio Tinto Coal Australia is an equal opportunity employer, and actively encourages women and indigenous candidates to apply, according to Lamb.

“We aim to have the best workforce we can recruit and candidate selection is merit-based. We also actively encourage locals to apply as we support local employment wherever possible, so if two applicants are equal and one is living residentially or chooses to live residentially, then they will be the preferred candidate.

“Already there are 116 employees – almost 40 per cent of Clermont mine’s permanent staff –living in the local region, plus many, many more locally-based contractors.”

These latest operator positions will be starting in April, with a progressive rolling start date into May.

The resources sector in Queensland will have a “battle on its hands” to find the right people for an estimated 41,000 new sector jobs by 2020, according to the Queensland Resources Council.

QRC deputy chief executive Greg Lane said the federal government’s launch of the National Resource Sector Employment Taskforce in 2009 was welcome recognition of the urgency to have appropriately skilled workers available to support minerals and energy sector growth.

“The skills shortage is an issue that has risen very sharply in importance since the last quarterly survey of member company chief executives,” Lane said.

Cadden maintains the situation in New South Wales is not much better.

“These real issues are currently being experienced as we are currently engaged in recruitment campaigns to identify 280 people for a brownfield site and during the course of 2010 will be managing a campaign to source and assess another 300 professionals, operators and tradespeople for a greenfield site – all in the Hunter Valley. The skill issues are equally relevant across states.”

While in the past mining companies would have been able to attract skilled operators, trades people and professionals by offering competitive remuneration packages, the lack of supply will mean companies will have to get used to having a greater number of semi or unskilled workers that need training.

Technical and executive search consultant for Talent2’s mining recruitment practice Alex Beutler said one of the biggest challenges was balancing clients’ expectations with the reality of the labour market.

“It is about getting the clients’ and candidates’ expectation to marry in the middle,” he said.

“They (employers) expect to get away with lower salaries and stricter conditions. If they want to get the right people they want to start paying salaries akin to 2007.”

The worst is yet to come with a lot of coal clients examining very large projects that won’t be operational in about three years, Beutler said.

Allied services such as the project construction and delivery sector, which were badly affected by the global financial crisis, are also rapidly sucking up labour as new projects come onstream and existing projects are expanded.

“Operations will have to be more flexible on the ratios of cleanskins to experienced operators and may have to move from a traditional ratio of 1:3 to 1:1 or more,” Cadden said.

“There will need to be a significant commitment to the training and induction of cleanskins. Coal mining companies are not going to put anyone at risk. They have a duty of care to ensure their people are competent, productive and operating safely, and this will add an extra dimension of training and related cost.

“That provides a real opportunity to create a vibrant and appropriate culture for modern companies.”

Cadden believes greater consideration needs to be given to non-traditional mining employment groups such as women and people from indigenous communities.

“Employment of cleanskins provides great flexibility as people can be sourced from any employment background,” he said.

“It does mean that selection processes need to be rigorous to identify the critical behaviours for success.”