Canada’s mining industry has great potential, but there are a number of labour-related challenges it will need to overcome to ensure its growth, according to the Mining Industry Human Resources (MiHR) Council.
Gustavo Jurado, a senior labour market economist with MiHR, delivered that message during a mini mining forum hosted by MineConnect Oct. 21 as part of the annual Modern Mining and Technology Sudbury activities.
MiHR is an independent, non-profit organization that works with mining industry stakeholders to study human resource and labour challenges in the sector.
Current labour market conditions are favourable right now, Jurado said, in large part because of high mineral prices.
About 100,000 Canadians work in the mining and quarrying industry, with another 85,000 to 95,000 working in the mining supply and service industry, marking all-time employment highs in both sectors.
Unfortunately, even though demand has risen, the labour pool hasn’t been able to keep up.
“If we look at the unemployment rates, they are historically low, which is a sign that employers are starting to exhaust their labour pools,” Jurado said.
Canada’s average unemployment rate is about seven per cent, he noted, but in mining and quarrying, over the last four years, it’s fluctuated between four per cent and less than one per cent, which is “extremely low.”
“This is pointing to chronic labour shortages, which means that employers are hitting a barrier when they look at employment, and they're quickly running out of the types of workers that they need to expand.”
Demand is only set to grow as countries around the globe shift to low-carbon energy sources, necessitating a need for critical minerals like the ones sourced from Canada, he added.
With the province recently rolling out its one project, one process framework, and the federal government launching its Critical Minerals Strategy, “we do think employment growth is likely to go even higher,” Jurado said.
In the next 10 years, MiHR is forecasting mining employment could grow anywhere between three and 25 per cent. At a minimum, the industry will need to hire 191,000 workers — accounting for new hires, retirements, and turnover — to meet its needs, MiHR found.
But in a “recession and expansionary scenario,” that number rises to 256,000 people, Jurado said.
“Now, this is a large number of skilled workers that we’ll need to hire,” he said. “And it underscores the importance of preparing now to ensure that the industry has the talent it needs and doesn't run into more intense labour shortages.”
To do that, the industry will have to overcome a number of obstacles.
The workforce is aging, Jurado said, and the share of workers under the age of 25 has fallen from 12 per cent to just six per cent over the last 35 years.
Mining just isn’t an appealing industry to work in amongst many young Canadians, who, in a recent poll, described the industry with words like “hard”, “dangerous”, “dirty”, and “pollution”.
A whopping 66 per cent of those aged 15 to 30 said they would not or definitely would not work in mining, and only 16 per cent said they would or definitely would.
“This is a problem,” Jurado said, “because if we want to get the next generation to step in and fill the void of retirement workers, we will need to convince them that mining is an option.”
Part of the issue is that the country’s postsecondary institutions often struggle to respond to the industry’s needs.
For example, less than two per cent of all engineering students go into mining-related engineering streams; most choose mechanical, civil and electrical engineering. This means that the industry is far less able to respond when the industry enters a growth cycle, Jurado said.
Yet, the industry is very reliant on postsecondary institutes to educate its future workers, with close to 70 per cent of workers now having postsecondary education.
“This means that any weakness in the postsecondary pipeline is going to be felt directly by mining employers who now depend on the system for skilled workers,” Jurado said.
Additionally, the industry has failed to capitalize on key diversity groups, including women, immigrants and Indigenous workers.
Women make up between 10 and 20 per cent of workers in mining, while immigrants make up just eight per cent, MiHR found. For Indigenous workers, mining remains one of the highest employers, jumping to 11 per cent from about four per cent in 2007.
A final challenge facing the industry is the rapid introduction of new technologies.
Battery electric vehicles, remote operation, Internet of Things, and artificial intelligence are helping the industry become more productive and competitive, but it doesn’t have the skilled employees needed to work with this tech.
On this, responsibility lies with both the postsecondary institutions and the companies, Jurado said.
“In order to deploy new technologies across the mining industry, you need people with the necessary skill set, and also you need enough of them,” Jurado said.
“This will require employers to upskill the workforce, but also to coordinate with the postsecondary sector to ensure that the next generation can enter the workforce with the right skills.”
MiHR is currently studying how technology, innovation and AI is being introduced into the mining industry, including new skill requirements, rates of adoption among mining companies, and areas of vulnerability for certain workers.
Results of that research will be published within the next year, Jurado said.
After studying mining labour market trends over several years, MiHR has developed a number of initiatives aimed at alleviating some of the pressures on industry, including wage subsidies, and co-ops, youth outreach campaigns, skills recognition programs, training programs, and more that are available to employers and employees via its website.
Modern Mining and Technology Sudbury is an annual, week-long campaign to promote the benefits of mining in the Sudbury area. This year's initiative will wrap up on Oct. 24.