Recruitment expert Hays said Queensland is the place to be looking for mining jobs with engineers, electricians and safety professionals expected to remain in high demand until September.
In its latest quarterly report, Hays noted that most mining work was available in Western Australia, South Australia and Queensland.
“Employers in Queensland are recruiting temporary assignments,” Hays said.
“They are focusing on local candidates and the number of FIFO roles has reduced. FIFO mines are instead only making key replacements as opposed to creating new roles.
”Residential remote mines are still looking for quality residential workers in various positions and if candidates are prepared to relocate then remote positions are available.”
According to Hays, WA’s job market is candidate rich but this is being balanced by a healthy flow of work across all areas of mining.
“There is certainly more positivity from employers in relation to the next few months.”
The report stated that while employers were still focused on temporary assignments, the new financial year budgets would see an increase in permanent vacancy activity.
Meanwhile, redundancies and mine closures in South Australia had seen a number of quality candidates flood the job market in the state.
Hays said while company’s there were not hiring permanent staff, contractors were being recruited to help with peak workloads.
Victoria’s mining job market was set to benefit from an increase in work and positivity across the industry, the report said.
Below is a description of hotspots as identified by HAYS.
Western Australia:
Reliability Engineers – Most engineers pursue a career in projects or design, creating a shortage of reliability engineers.
Shutdown Planners – This is a high pressure position and therefore few candidates pursue a career in this field.
Mine Site Trainers – We are seeing an increased focus on safety, which is creating demand for trainers to work in growing training departments.
Mining Engineers – While not a key area of demand, vacancies at the mid-level typically require a unique skill set and there can be a shortage of candidates who match the requirements exactly.
Queensland:
A&I Engineers – Employers are focusing on improving productivity in order to achieve cost savings, which is creating demand for analysis and improvement engineers.
A&I safety professionals – As in Western Australia, employers are increasingly focused on safety and are making safety improvements. Thus analysis and improvement safety professionals are needed.
Health Advisors – Employers are also concerned about the health, wellbeing and ergonomics of workers, which is creating jobs for health advisors.
Trainer & Assessors – Given the focus on cost savings, employers want to ensure their operators are working as efficiently as possible. This is fuelling demand for trainers and assessors.
Prestrip and Production Mining Engineers – Employers are hiring these engineers to ensure that their prestrip and production operations are running as effectively as possible.
Underground Mine Surveyors – Candidates are now more focused on coal than metalliferous. Add the salaries on offer as well as residential factors and the talent pool for underground mine surveyors has decreased.
Drill & Blast Engineers – Underground mining engineers with a mixture of both Surpac and Vulcan software knowledge who can carry out detailed ring designs and are willing to live in residential locations are in demand.
Plant Metallurgists – The metalliferous market has very specific processing with both flotation and heap leach, which is creating a need for plant metallurgists.
Electricians – This demand is due to the focus on residential positions. In addition, candidates can receive a higher pay rate in the coal market, which is creating demand for electricians in Queensland’s metalliferous market.
Victoria:
Geologists (Gold) – With an increase in projects moving forward interstate, a number of geologist roles have become available. The majority of the work is being conducted remotely with some field work required.
Fitters/Boiler Makers – A number of site based candidates are sought, particularly on Victorian quarries where the demand for highly skilled and experienced staff has grown. The increase in civil related projects in Victoria has resulted in additional work for several quarry sites.
South Australia:
Cost Control Engineers – Organisations are looking for cost savings and are focused on delivering projects safely. They are therefore hiring people to control all expenses and ensure costs and details are managed from the post contract stage.
Project Engineers – Multiple interstate companies are winning contracts in South Australia and require local candidates to fill this role.
Pipe Welders – Due to the increase in interstate oil and gas construction projects, skilled South Australian welders have been lured away to work in Queensland or Western Australia, creating a shortage in this state.
Reliability Engineers – There has always been a shortage of reliability engineers in maintenance departments as many engineers have progressed their career in other directions, towards projects or design. Reliability centred maintenance is still a relatively new methodology for some operations so proven previous expertise in this area is in demand.
Rubber Liners – The lack of training and apprenticeships has led to this skills shortage. In addition, most good Liners have retained work interstate.