Kalgoorlie may be home to Australia’s highest concentration of skilled mining labour but even here the national skills shortage is starting to make its mark.
Who is working to stem an outflow of skilled workers and who is not is the subject of heated debate in the Goldfields capital.
Historically, many large mining companies with operations in and around Kalgoorlie have been accused of failing to add to the local pool of labour by not strategically recruiting outside the city, and for neglecting to train their fair share of apprentices.
The mining industry reckons it is damned either way. Miners cop plenty of criticism for hiring outside of Kalgoorlie and operating fly-in, fly-out mines, a practice that has its own drawbacks, such as the provision of adequate accommodation. Asked why they don’t recruit in Perth and move families to towns near operations, miners argue the housing stock in places such as Kambalda is generally not acceptable to people in Perth.
As for apprenticeships, the decline in training rates is caused by myriad factors. Employers, large and small, argue school leavers these days aren’t interested in apprenticeships.
In addition there are complaints the Federal Government does not provide adequate incentives to hire apprentices. Mining companies also argue that a four-year apprenticeship is a large commitment in a cyclical market such as the metals market.
The cause of the drain of workers from Kalgoorlie is clear – it is the centre from which mining companies globally recruit their workforce.
BHP-Billiton has recently been actively recruiting for its Queensland and Pilbara operations, while Perseverance Corporation has taken mining professionals to Bendigo. And tradespeople from Kalgoorlie in part fill large and extremely lucrative contracts in mines in Tanzania and Ghana.
While unfortunate for Kalgoorlie it makes sense that these companies recruit the way they do. Either they don’t have the available skills to recruit locally or, in the case of BHP, they avoid poaching from contractors that operate in the vicinity of their global mine sites.
To bring people in from outside the local area is to expand the available pool of labour, which is very good business practice in times of mining booms.
The effect of the drain is also clear. It has pitted employer against employer in competition for workers. The smaller companies are finding it difficult to compete with the sort of money and conditions the larger mining companies are offering qualified tradespeople.
One mining company is understood to have recruited electricians no more than a year out of apprenticeship with offers of a $90,000 annual salary and a five-days-on-weekends-off roster. Many electricians in Kalgoorlie earn $42 a hour these days and most work more than 60 hours a week.
The skills shortage, I am told, is so dire in Kalgoorlie that an automotive business has shut up shop and the owner has returned to the tools. Drilling rigs lie idle despite huge demand for their services.
Mining service and supply companies, unlike the miners themselves, are moving their recruitment efforts out of town, or they have stopped hiring.
In the middle of all this are Kalgoorlie’s many recruitment firms, which act as the intermediary for the mining companies, place jobs and collect a fee on the way through. They are accused by some employers of churning the market.
In their defence the recruitment firms say that those employers complaining are not prepared to pay the going rate for skilled workers.
Emerging from the complexities contributing to the skills shortage crisis is the simple issue of obligation.
Are the mining companies obliged to maintain the pool of labour they draw from? The companies would argue not if it does not benefit their bottom line. And the smaller mining service industry argues it cannot afford to bear the whole cost.
But the mining industry may have the solution taken out of its hands if prescribed measures are forced upon it by a Federal Government with little regard for economic cycles.
• Based in the Goldfields, Sharon Kemp is a former reporter, most recently with The Age.
