The Entry Level Mining Jobs going under the Radar
The New Mining Boom Jobs
There is a huge job boom going on in all the Underground Gold and Copper mines around the country. It’s so big that it reminds me of the big Iron Ore boom of the late 90’s (Surface Truck Drivers) and the Oil and Gas boom (TA’s and Tradies) that went from 2012 to 2018. The employers need people and it hasn’t yet got the media’s attention, which is good news if you are a new starter reading this. If you type “underground” into Seek and you will see all the jobs come up. You only need a manual car license, you don’t need a HR or any RII equipment tickets, as all the employers must issue their own onsite equipment tickets, inductions and procedures. You can start as a Nipper, Truck, Agi or Diamond Driller Offsider on $100K a year for an even time roster or $130K for a 2 & 1.
Why all the jobs? Gold has pushed into the $6000 an ounce range in the last 12 months and Copper is above $20,000 a ton. This means there are a number of new and mothballed sites opening up, which all need staff. Between the mines reopening and the current ones, employers have too many jobs and not enough experienced people and hiring new starters for these jobs isn’t as straight forward as you would think. It’s not the employer’s fault (they do the best that they can) but there are a lot of moving parts that go into training new starters, a lot can happen.
As a shift boss I have trained 100’s of people in these entry level jobs and no one has a problem learning to drive the truck. All the employers will spend 100 hours teaching their new starter to drive their truck their way, it’s the easy part. The hard part is making sure that they understand the language, culture and systems of work happening around them. If I as the shift boss (or a senior member of crew) aren’t confident that you understand what is being said to you, or the instruction being given to you, then we have a big problem. The longer you need a buddy to be your mining brain, the more they ramp up the pressure on everyone involved (shift boss included). This is one of the many reasons there is a high turnover of new starters in these jobs. Knowing how the mine works, understand the language, culture and systems of work are skills and knowledge that all employers need their employees to have (which most new starters overlook). If they can’t leave you alone to get on with the job, then you won’t have a job for very long.
There are lots of other reasons people decide that these underground jobs aren’t for them. The jobs can be repetitive and boring, there is always production pressure and working in an environment where you are blasting to advance the mine. Then have to install ground support to make it safe again, can sometimes be too much for people and their idea of safety. Unfortunately, when people start these jobs, often their fantasy doesn’t meet our reality of the job and is the reason we set out to write a short course to prep people for what they are walking into.
The brief was simple, everything a Shift Boss wanted a new starter to know before they came onto one of our crews. We thought it would be a half day course, it turned out to be more like 4 to 5 days. Today it’s online and is 50 hours information that brings a new starter up to speed on how the underground mine works. We just wanted to give people a real understanding of what is going to be expected of them on site in one of these jobs. We didn’t write it to turn people off, however over the last 8 years we have found that about a third of our students have worked out that their fantasy didn’t meet our reality and decided to take their mining aspirations no further. They identified early the realities of the industry instead of spending thousands of dollars chasing a dream. Which is a great result.
The last thing you want to be is standing on site, 3 weeks into it, working out it’s not for you. I have seen this play out too many times and no one wins, the person has a terrible time, their dream (that most move heaven and earth to get) is burst and the company losses as well. No one wins. This is why I feel it’s important for people to know what these jobs entail before you chase one down. As the old saying goes, be careful what you wish for, you might just get it and if your fantasy doesn’t meet our reality it’s not going to end well.
If you want to check out the training this is the link to the Introduction to Underground Mining package or if you would like to talk to me you can you can leave your contact details on this link or call me on 1300 609 119
Regards
The Mining Coach