Jobs Aplenty in Canada’s Mining Industry

38 Replies to “Jobs Aplenty in Canada’s Mining Industry”

1. Open Question: Why are so many jobs going unfilled?
   Answer:   Because many would rather sit on their arse and collect an ‘entitlement’ then do an honest days work.
   .

2. Canada’s weird EI scheme has higher and/or longer payment schemes in some areas than others. This distorts the labor market. Also, immigration restrictions keep out the people we need.

3. basically as marty said. It’s tough working 2 weeks in/2 weeks out, especially in a dry camp where they enforce random drug tests! Plus most of the willing,able,and great workers from the East are already in Ft.Mac. You snooze,you lose.

4. Many different reasons.
   Remote locations that do not appeal to those who have spent their lives 5 minutes from Walmart, McDonalds, and Starbucks. Also, the harsh weather conditions are not appealing.
   Aboriginals who have poor work ethics. They might give a good effort for a few weeks, but then its fish season, and they disappear. Plus all the rest of the stereotypical behaviours are in play too. For the most part, they are, unfortunately, unreliable and self-victimizing, of course.
   It can also be hard physical work, which, to many of our young, is to be avoided at all costs.
   Plus, there is also the eco-freak, Gaia worshipping sector, where Mining is EVIL, like those other industries like Forestry and Oil/Gas. Much better to be a barista at Starbucks than an earth destroying tool of capitalists. And then complain about how unfair it is that they don’t have the income like others do.

5. I can’t speak to the mining industry. But ten years ago, when it came to oil and gas in Alberta, the problem was rampant nepotism. The joke was that the industry was like the mafia: If you ain’t pawt of the family…fahgettaboutit!
   Drug testing was never an issue. I knew plenty who were heavy into coccaine and such and head-office always had someone watching their backs.

6. Yes, it is tough and demanding work. I am currently managing the engineering of a mine and concentrator being built in the US, on TN visa (consultant). Even though the engineering isn’t physically demanding, it is indeed frustrating work, as we have to kowtow to the EPA and the US Forest Service (Circus). The knowledge base and experience required for mining are in really short supply. One factor is the big lull in mining from the late 80’s to mid 2000’s. There is a big shortage of people. A big slug of mining engineers are white haired, or already passed away, with not much following behind, and it is going to get worse. The amount of young people getting engineering degrees in the required disciplines to support this industry are nowhere near enough to fill the coming requirements. Those that do, however, can pretty well name their price. I’m making about 4X what I used to make in manufacturing, with only increases in my future.

7. My hometown (North Shore Quebec) was a booming mining place when I gew up, then went very depressed from about 1985 until 2005. Now it’s booming again, thanks to high commodity prices. They are begging for workers.
   As to the open question: Besides the points made above, there is also a demographic issue:
   – Guys in their 30s and 40s, the core group for this type of work, also tend to have families with young children.
   – Older guys have more freedom, but sometimes a 50-year old body can’t take the pounding a 25-year old body does. I know, as I’m there.
   – Younger fellows would be the best, and in a different age, they were. But now? Many just want to sit on their ass and play video games.

8. GN
   Yeah, I’m in that 40’s demo, with a 14 year old happy in his highschool hockey program, in LaLa land (Victoria).
   I would happily trade it in for a six figure mining income (3 weeks in 1 out), for this urban silly land. No way my wife would go though, any temperatures less than zero is FREEZING, and the ‘Mrs Hyde’ comes out in her….

9. A woman of my acquaintance was recently telling me about a useless, dread-locked, facially-pierced young man in her family. Dumb, lazy, uneducated, his list goes on. They set him up, through family connections, with a job interview for an entry-level mining industry job. He survived the interview but, upon being offered the job, gave a little speech about being unable to accept working in such an environmentally destructive field.
   This problem can be generally classified under the label ‘inappropriate attitude’.

10. As the wife of a recently retired old hard-rock miner,I can speak with some experience on this matter.My hubby is 65,is still getting job offers (he was a shift boss)..the mine he was at in Man.brought in a few guys to clean house,and they started trying to push out the old-guard,the guys that busted their backs because they LOVED the work.It was all about ‘not having the gold,but getting the gold’ We have spent months at a time apart,when he was at fly-in mine in NWT,his last job was a piece of cake with a 2and2 sched.He left because of stupidity in upper mngmt,’diversity’ hires (if you get my drift!),and his fear,that the dope-smokin’,coke-snortin loons underground were gonna kill somebody,and he wasn’t going to have his neck in a noose if this happened. I have had the honor of being underground a few times,and I cannot tell you how much I admire these guys,BUT the next generation of miners want it all,and not have to work for it.Sad to see, as these old tramp miners were some tough tough old buggers,and I just admire them so much.

11. Well, one job is going unfilled because I think I should stay close to a couple of young people for a couple more years, even though it means making a somewhat uncertain and certainly less lucrative living. If not for that, I’d go anywhere for 2-4 weeks in camp alternating with 1-2 weeks off even if it wasn’t much more money than I earn now.

12. I had looked into a career in the Bakken oil fields or something in the North Dakota region. (I’m a Yank, btw.) I had heard of six-figure salaries and such. After researching the field a bit I found out how truck drivers and equipment operators were earning those salaries. They work 18-hour shifts and sleep four hours a night. Well hell’s bells, a person could make lots of money in any career if one could keep up that murderous schedule! Think I’ll stay here in Kentucky. We can’t mine here either. Thanks a lot, eco-luddites.

13. Well before I joined the forces I operated a scoop tram almost identical to the one on the cover. Looks to be a 5 or 6 yard.
    The work was some of the most satisfying I ever did and the people were amoung the most professional I ever worked with.
    Hard? You bet! But at the end of the day, you knew you had earned every damn cent on that pay cheque!
    If the industry had been a bit more stable back in the early 90’s I might still be running a scoop somewhere, or more likely by now, a jackleg in a production heading. That’s where the real bonus money was!

14. Many of these jobs are in areas where unemployment is near 100%, but why work when the taxpayers give you a nice check every month.

15. unfilled jobs?
    it’s the same old same old there Rob; you have to have the experience to get the job so you can get the experience to get the job.
    I blame the apprentishit cycstem. google it.
    here’s an idea all you right wingers…. mmmmm nah, you don’t give a syphilitic tw*t about the needs of the working man, you just want to figure out brand new ways to minimize labour cost REGARDLESS of the consequences on the nation.
    curious, isn’t it? the HUGE increases and improvements in std of living happened in the now waning heyday of organized labour. but NONE in oh, say, Victorian England or present day Canuckistan.

16. ‘anon’
    Most of us are working men. We just don’t like the union telling us how to think, what to say, or how to vote .
    Unions are just another form of -bad- management, that have no skin in the game, but want all the benefits, and none of the risk.
    Hint: You union will sacrifice you, if it fits their bigger agenda.

17. What DanBC said.
    The EI system needs to be reformed so as to encourage workers to relocate to other parts of the country.

18. The real question is why would skilled labour want to move to the territories? Money? The trades are in such demand, with looming retirements the demand will only increase, that there are much better options. The only hope they have is to aggressively recruit from northern communities, people already used to the lifestyle, and train them themselves.

19. He survived the interview but, upon being offered the job, gave a little speech about being unable to accept working in such an environmentally destructive field.
    I remember having the same qualms sitting in an interview for a mining industry job that ended up keeping me gainfully employed for 13 years. The gentleman who eventually became my boss had one comment that changed my mind and has stuck with me ever since: “If it can’t be grown, it’s gotta be mined.”

20. Why are so many jobs going unfilled?
    Mostly because of a lack of skilled labor. High schools push that ‘winners’ go to college and university, and ‘losers’ go into the trades. As a result there are lots of college and university graduates with useless liberal arts and social degrees and unmarketable skills. There is a serious labor shortage in the trades, and it’s only getting worse as more tradesmen retire and fewer young people are there to replace them.

21. “… here’s an idea all you right wingers…. mmmmm nah, you don’t give a syphilitic tw*t about the needs of the working man, you just want to figure out brand new ways to minimize labour cost REGARDLESS of the consequences on the nation.”
    Somebody will have to wipe the leftard drool from their screen, after pounding out that intellectual gem. WORKERS OF THE WORLD, UNITE!!!
    Now let’s talk about reality, shall we?
    I bet 90% or more people on this blog are “working men”. I haven’t noted any plutocrat postings here, as of late. And anybody who wants to keep their company healthy, and therefore, their own job, should be interested in reducing costs. And this includes labour costs. Hey, anon, ever worked in the private sector? My guess is “no”, as your attitude screams public sector troughing/entitlements. If you work in the private sector, you’ll see horrors such as:
    – robots that weld car bodies faster with less errors than a human
    – electronic bottle inspectors (EBI) that check for beer bottle defects at 1500 bottles a minute or more, far more accurately and quickly than a human inspector
    – forklifts that replaced horse-drawn carts and chainfalls to lift/transport heavy loads
    – Autocad or other CAD terminals that allowed 1 designer to do the work of 2 or 3, and – gasp – computers that allowed accounting departments to reduce headcount. Yes, bonehead, even white-collar folk aren’t immune to job cuts.
    Anon, yours is the idiotic mentality of the TARP/ left-wing drone: nobody can fail. Nobody!! Every business must survive.
    But they can’t all survive. Bailouts and subsidized rescue packages won’t allow companies to file Chapter 11, reorganize and restructure to come back smaller and leaner, and have a chance at future success. Rescue plans and subsidies divert resources from businesses that could actually use them to grow their profits. Maobama financed the government takeovers of GM and Chrysler to pad the finances of thousands of UAW union workers, and whose union dues financed the democrats almost exclusively. Not only did this appear benevolent, but plenty of those dues were neatly laundered and funneled to the kleptocrats.
    Who did it hurt? The taxpayer, of course. And it also hurt other businesses where resources (cash) were stolen by the feds to prop up poorly run businesses that should have been allowed to fail. It gave them a leg up on the only 1 of the big 3 that was in a decent financial position: Ford.
    That’s the crony capitalist system, hard at work. And the unions were further glad-handed as the bondholders and investers were elbowed out of the way so the unions received payments first.
    Nice.
    But maybe anon is right: we should subsidize private sector losers (because that’s all that governments can do, after all). Look at the wildly successful tidings our canuck governments have wrought in floating Ballard Power Systems. Or green energy brainstorms like Solyndra. Hey, anon, I bet had Reagan set up a TARP for the typewriter companies in the 80s, why, word processing software would never have caught on, and you could be braying your stupid left-wing socialist tripe on an Olivetti, instead of a PC, eh?
    Learn a bit of rudimentary economics, not to mention common sense, before typing, anon. You’ll appear less moronic that way.
    mhb23re
    at gmail d0t calm

22. mhb, hear, hear, so well said.
    Obviously anon has never known anyone who had to work and die under the logical extension of the system he would like.
    I repeat what I said earlier, the EI system needs to encourage people to retrain and relocate, not sit on their petuty in some area that growth has left behind.
    My dad, as a nineteen year old, rode the rails in the 1930s looking for work.
    Men in the past have left their families behind, even across oceans, to find employment and a new life and then brought their families over or across the country. These people are builders.

23. mhb nails it!

24. Anon, you are a very lost little occupier aren’t you, my grandfather went to the lumber camps at 13, his father died, he was the oldest of 8 and there was a need for money, he didn’t occupy a tent and whine about the 99 percent, he knew he was the 1 percent that his mother counted on, he had a tree fall on his hand, his hands were so cold he did not at first notice his finger hurt, but it stayed in his glove when he took his gloves off. You make me sick with your postings, go back to your tent pitched on someone else’s land, because you will never own any of your own.

25. I graduated in mining in ’95, got my first full-time job in ’99 (with any crap-job I could find in between). There weren’t a lot of jobs, there weren’t a lot of students then either. Mining is cyclic. It’s at a high point now, if history teaches us then most commodities will fall off within 5-10 years. Most folks that aren’t interested don’t want the lifestyle: camp jobs or shiftwork are hard, life is much easier making coffee for those who go out and work at the mine or on the rigs, and they don’t have to get cold or live in as remote of setting. I’d put it down to us becoming too urbanized, logging paid the way where I grew up and it wasn’t as time-intensive as cattle farming (to pick one of the many other rural-lifestyle-jobs-that-need-doing) but it was long hours, hard work, and the knowledge that if you didn’t do your job correctly it could kill you in a dozen ways. It’s not just in wartime that “who dares, wins” applies. Those who have no knowledge of how things are made, where wealth comes from, and why some jobs just need to be done should always wind up with less options than those who will say “I need a job, I’m going to where the work is, and will learn from those who have done and will live like those that do until I can do it right.”

26. Most of the above reasons are correct.
    21st century living has spoiled the “get up and go” attitude of people across the board. They want jobs near where they live. The 3 in 1 out routine isn’t easy and living remote can be tough.
    Also, many of the jobs are hard. And by hard I mean really hard. A leasehand on an oil rig for example.
    Yeah, he makes about $400.00 in 12 hours, but he’s working outside in -30below temps at 2am, covered in grease and toxic mud standing around roaring diesel engines with a mask on mixing chemicals.
    Serving coffee to hot chicks for $9.00 an hour has it’s advantages.
    Also, companies will ALWAYS claim a worker shortage.
    ALWAYS.

27. Open Question: Why are so many jobs going unfilled?
    Answer: the unfilled jobs are for men willing, able and trained to do manly jobs. But, for the past two generations, we have taught boys that the right life choices are office jobs or, in less subtle words, feminine jobs.
    Change the primary school teachers’ attitude towards boys being boys and you will get the men you are looking for.

28. The rise in the standard of living in Asia, Africa and South America is causing the demand in minerals and that won’t stop for years.

29. jeff
    “Also, companies will ALWAYS claim a worker shortage.
    ALWAYS.”
    Whenever anyone says worker shortage I counter that it is a pay shortage. A lot of service industry people have given up on Canadians and just hire foreigners. They may not hire their kids but people still shop there. I don’t.

30. Where have I heard the refrain before” “where have all the geologists gone?” In one of those “dead” spots when commodities were suddenly in favour.
    Simple, like some of the trades and professions that work commodities, its cyclical. Live through one or more downturns and the ability to pay a mortgage, or see your kids or wife, gets pretty tough. Now hard rock “geologists” out of school are treated like Kelly Girls, 2 & 2 data input, no real hands on to get the experience to move up. When I started you flew by the seat of your pants and “boldly went where no man went before”. Now, its just a technician’s job.
    I’m a hard rock geologist, I lived the “bush life” for 10 years before switching to oil and gas, first marriage didn’t survive two years, so batched it for 25 more. Told wife #2 “I’m never home” before she married me. Now I work wellsite geology, 200 days a year out in the field on rigs and more if I want it. I turn 60 this month. I wouldn’t thank you for a town job, even as a geologist. Too many knives and arrows sticking out of your back at the end of the day.
    I love what I do, because its how I do it that has my phone ringing all the time. Besides that, there is a certain personal satisfaction out of writing your own paycheck from your own company, rather than one from someone else.
    I train people to do this job. There are few who have a work ethic or any real professionalism. All they see is the paycheck, but not what it really takes to keep the paychecks coming. That stuff can’t really be taught, but learned at your father’s knee, or grandfather’s, or uncle’s. I learned it on my own, as I didn’t want to be like my old man.

31. Tranio – if I may paraphrase you, “this time the bubble won’t burst because: …” When folks are in a bubble they see no reason for the trend to not continue. Can I spot what will pop this one? No, but I know that the good times never go on forever.

32. the EI system needs to encourage people to retrain and relocate
    What do you know about retraining and relocating, kulak?
    You’ve been sucking from the public trough your whole sorry welfare bum existence, probably passed on the tradition to some of your sorry spawn. When have you ever done anything but collect a subsidy check?

33. hi bart, uh actually I’m in my 5th house, all of which received some upgrades, some a lot. for instance, 2 complete bathrooms, lots of wiring (I once hooked up the door opener to some spot lights. the missus would pull up and the place suddenly looked like new years eve. she appreciated the high visibility), ummm, 2 hardwood floors, framing, drywall, concrete etc etc.
    with nary a day of trade school under my belt. seems like my trade school brothers I inherited the knack for working with machines. gee, I betcha if the goddamm apprenticeshyt cystem had gotten out of my way I could have written the book on, oh, factory automation. (I managed to pursue a 25 yr career in IT in addition to using all those cutters, drills and caulking guns)
    so what I do is constantly make improvements until the decision to sell (top of the spike and all that). I have lived in 4 different cities doing this, I move with the flow. I do not sit on my hands gimme gimme gimme. you SDAers know shyt about the other side of the ‘coin’. bunch of pompous sycophants living in the past.
    I on the other hand have accepted that there will not be any political party in Canada that puts the needs of the NATION ahead of their own. you right wingers can’t accept that. Stevie Harpo is not hesitating at all to continue the conservatist program of improving the lot of the 0.01%ers in hopes of garnering favour called campaign contributions.
    oh, what’s that you say? you didn’t know *that’s* how it all works? few do.

34. I went looking for a mining job last year. I’m not a mining engineer/geologist with 10 years experience so I’m not qualified. The cost of re educating yourself outweighs the pay potential so it’s difficult to make that move. Plus the industry could bust again while I sit in school and then I’m worse off.

35. My boys are third class power engineers.They make 100k + a year.
    Cost $6-7,000 each to get there.
    Good investment I’d say….

36. anon, you are a legend in your own mind!
    How is the unicorn, fairy dust, and rainbow industry?

37. Can’t answer quickly. I’m off tonight to the Canadian Mineral Processors conference. A conference for milling professionals (a subset of mining engineers). Held every January since 1964 . . . In Ottawa.
    That and the fact the industry was down and out for 15 years might explain a few things.
    Cheers!
    JE (looking forward to wearing his suit for the first and last time this year).

38. Hey, I said I was looking for a job, I didn’t say I was looking for WORK…