Of late I’ve had a few people emailing me about getting jobs in the mining industry.  My response has always been that its pretty bloody hard to enter the mining industry if you don’t have any mining experience, sought after qualification, transferable skills or a contact already in the industry.  If you have none of the above then it will be very challenging, but if there’s a will there’s a way.

Read my article below that I had published in ‘The Press’ (New Zealand Newspaper). It outlines my point of view based on my experience entering the mining industry and working in the industry and seeing how it works.

The Press – The great Australian mining myth – by Mark “Hap” Cameron

Now add to the above challenges the “global economic crisis”.  This has hit the mining industry hard, as the halt on development has meant that the raw minerals are not required, eg at Woodie
Woodie (my mine) we are mining Manganese which is used in the production of steel -as a hardener- , and with our main Market being China whose smelters  have shut down, it means that no one is buying Manganese.  So its not a very good situation when you have no cash inflows, especially in mining when the costs of running a mine are so high.  The company I work for has closed (put on care and maintenance) one of our other 3 mines and the other one has been downsized by half, leaving only Woodie still running as usual, with the hope that the forecasts are correct and the market picks up come the New Year.

So now in an industry that only a couple of months ago was booming and couldn’t supply enough qualified workers to meet the demand, the tides have turned.  Now the mining industry is plagued with words such as; redundancy, downsizing, shutting down, cost cutting, employment freeze etc.

So with all this going on, the mining labour market will be swamped with experienced mine workers applying for a limited number of jobs, thus making it even harder to break into the industry.

Anyway, thats my thoughts, don’t let me put you off (haha), good luck.