A decade after they toiled through the lean years, miners are the new rock stars of Canada’s industrial workforce.

Surging commodity prices, strong demand for metals from the growing Asian economies and an anticipated flood of retirements by experienced miners has ensured recruits get lots of lovin’ from admiring suitors.

Over the next 10 years, more than 90,000 vacancies are expected in Canada’s mining industry.

“Canada enjoys a reputation as a global mining powerhouse both in terms of what we produce but also our knowledge and expertise,” says Paul Hebert, executive director of the Mining Industry Human Resources Council.

“That means our people and our graduates are highly sought after and are very aggressively courted by employers from overseas.”

The competition is so stiff that some companies have gone to great lengths to gain access to Canada’s best and brightest.

A few years ago, a consortium of Brazilian companies hired an airplane to treat prospective grads in British Columbia to an all-expenses-paid tour of their facilities.

Few companies go that far, but strong demand for skilled employees has forced them to offer generous salaries and signing bonuses.

Engineering and geosciences graduates, for example, can earn more than $100,000 per year, plus up to $25,000 in signing bonuses and retention payments for several years.

“It’s a huge opportunity for all Canadians to benefit from this,” Hebert said in an interview from Edmonton.

“There are high-paying, long-lasting opportunities. We are not talking about something that is going to go away overnight.”

With about 40 per cent of the aging mining workforce expected to retire in the coming years, he predicted, the demand will remain strong despite the cyclical nature of commodity prices.

The jobs are spread across the country but are primarily in traditional mining provinces of Ontario, Quebec, B.C., Alberta and Saskatchewan, along with the Far North.

Mining company Teck Cominco Ltd.(TSX:TCK.A) says it is facing a tighter labour market as it loses some workers to projects in the Alberta oilsands.

“It’s certainly a tighter labour market but it’s not one I would describe as really serious,” said Jim Utley, Teck-Cominco’s vice-president of human resources.

He said about half of the Vancouver-based company’s global workforce of 9,000 is expected to retire in the next five to 10 years.

As a result, the company is looking at offering alternative work arrangements where retirees can work part-time and still draw pensions.

Recent federal legislation that will allow workers to accumulate pension service and draw benefits while they work will be helpful, he said.

Offering competitive compensation is only part of the lure for graduates.

Young people are also very interested in career development opportunities, which companies with international projects can provide, he said.

Exploration levels are at record highs and there are advanced and early-development projects by the dozens.

In Quebec, some 4,000 jobs will be available in the coming decade, including 2,500 new opportunities because of renewed exploration and the reopening of old mines.

“You have to look back 25 years to see this level of exploration,” said Andre Lavoie of the Quebec Mining Association.

Last year alone, exploration investments in the province totalled $270 million, he said.

“The needs are major and shortages could cause some projects to be delayed in their development.”

With most mines being located in isolated communities in Abitibi, the North Shore and the province’s far north, attracting new recruits can often prove challenging.

A battered forestry industry provides great opportunities for older workers who want to remain in their communities and earn steady incomes.

In B.C., the infestation of the mountain pine beetle will make many forestry workers available, industry observers predict.

But it’s not always easy to take someone who has spent their lives in the forest and put them underground, said Lavoie.

Workers must complete 100 hours of training before being permitted to work in Quebec’s mines.

Overcoming the mining industry’s reputation for having dirty, unsafe working conditions is among the biggest challenges to enticing a wider range of Canadians, said Hebert.

“It’s modern and among the safest of any heavy industry in Canada and that it just is not what it was 100 years ago, but unfortunately that’s the image that is stuck with people.”

The growing exploration in the Far North has also prompted companies to increasingly seek out Aboriginal workers.

Canadian mining is the largest private-sector employer of Aboriginals in Canada.

With demographics that favour young and growing families, Aboriginals are an ideal potential workforce. However, they often don’t have an industrial culture and employers face socio-economic challenges, including a shortage of essential literacy and numeracy skills.

By The Canadian Press – For Business Edge

@ Kalteng.Info