“The survey results show a strong trend towards shorter shifts and fewer hours in the working week, suggesting that a reduction in working hours has been used by many companies to retain valued staff while cutting costs,” AusIMM chief executive Michael Catchpole said.

“Given the industry’s exposure to cyclical changes and reputation for shedding staff, it’s perhaps surprising that trends for 2009 in both salaries and employment remained relatively steady.”

The average base salary across the minerals sector was $A167,000, with a median of $145,000. Compared with the 2008 survey, the average was $8000 higher but the median was unchanged, suggesting there has not been a significant increase in salaries.

The largest increases were seen at the higher end of senior management, with the smallest percentage increases at the lower and entry levels.

“This suggests that companies are focusing resources more on retaining mid-career and experienced staff rather than attracting new entrants and this would also account for the overall average increase in salaries,” Catchpole said.

Since the survey began four years ago, 2009 is the first year the largest percentage of respondents indicated they worked eight hours a day on average (24.5%).

In previous surveys, the highest percentage of respondents indicated they worked 10 hours a day on average.

More than a quarter of respondents indicated the downturn had led to a reduction in salaries at their workplace, with 18.6% having been encouraged to take annual leave. A total of 3% of respondents had been made redundant.

Former AusIMM president and AMC Consultants chairman Peter McCarthy indicated reducing working hours through the adoption of a four-day week was a key strategy of his company to retain talent.

“Due to the effects of the global financial crisis on AMC in February, we were faced with two options: either terminate 20 per cent of employees, or reduce salaries by 20 per cent,” he said.

“Through taking the latter option, we have kept most people in their jobs, maintaining our capability to service our client’s needs, and most importantly retained talent for the upturn.”

Geological consultancy Geos Mining director Sue Border said her company had responded by focusing on strategies to identify new areas for business expansion, such as the Chinese resource estimation market, coal seam methane drilling and extraction.

Survey respondents were positive in their outlook, with more than 60% agreeing or strongly agreeing that the downturn would not last longer than two years.

Just under two-thirds of respondents indicated they expected to increase their level of remuneration over the next two years.

This was down around 15% from the 80% of respondents in the 2008 survey who expected their remuneration to increase, indicating a dampening of expectations.