Filling Holes: Companies look abroad, court Canada’s youth

Published in Mid-Canada Forestry & Mining, Summer 2007:

Some 530 kilometres northwest of Thunder Bay on the Canadian Shield, Red Lake Gold Mines is one of the world’s richest gold-producing operations. The mines produce nearly 800,000 ounces of gold annually, at relatively low cost. And production is expected to exceed a million ounces in 2011.

The robust activity at this huge Goldcorp operation, which includes the Campbell mine site at nearby Balmertown, means about 1,200 good-paying jobs. But as lucrative as those positions may be, it isn’t always easy filling them. Red Lake Gold Mines, like the Canadian mining industry generally, faces a growing challenge in recruiting qualified personnel.

The recruitment challenge in Canadian mining “runs the spectrum” from entry-level mine positions to millwrights to engineers, Goldcorp human resources vice-president Gerry Atkinson says from his office Vancouver.

Mining is “at the beginning phase” of its HR crunch, he adds. “I think the situation is going to get more difficult. I don’t think it’s going to get easier. And I think that organizations … are going to have to spend a lot more time thinking about their overall long-term strategy as far as recruitment and development are concerned.

“We’re doing things like building stronger relationships with high schools, stronger relationships with universities and trade schools. A number of our mine sites are in aboriginal communities, so we’re building stronger relationships with aboriginal communities. And we’re kind of looking outside the box a little bit in terms of, should we look at the feasibility of international recruitment.

“And also, we’re an international organization. I think we’re going to get more actively involved in internal transfers from … mine sites in Latin America. We’re looking at the feasibility of international transfers.”

Anne Kitchen has some ideas about what can be done to take on the human resources challenge in mining. And she’s well-qualified to comment. As business development manager of AMEC’s Training and Development Services unit, she has years of experience helping resource companies in several countries find and train workers.

Worker shortage

Every resource industry is seeing shortages in skilled workers, Kitchen says from her office in Vancouver. “We see it in more than mining.”

Forestry, for instance, is struggling with scarcities in skilled logging equipment operators and road construction workers. “The workforce shortage is real and growing,” a human resources manager recently told B.C.’s Kootenay Business magazine. “Forestry is still widely dismissed as a low-tech, low-skill sector when the opposite is true. More than ever, the industry needs a technology-savvy, skilled workforce.”

Likewise, oil and gas companies are having difficulties finding enough skilled workers. Sometimes the worker shortage has caused production delays and the postponement of projects. And it’s part of a global trend that’s been termed a “personnel crisis.”

Canada’s mining industry is expected to face a nationwide 80,000-worker shortage in the next decade, in positions ranging from mining engineer to entry-level positions. “The mining industry needs (to fill) all levels of positions right now,” Ryan Montpelier of the Mining Industry Human Resources Council (MIHR) says from Kanata, Ont.

“In general, the problem varies a bit,” Kitchen remarks. “It depends on where you are in the world.” In Canada, the main factor is a demographic trend. Mines have aging workforces. Many workers are retiring, and there aren’t enough skilled young workers to take their place. The Mining Industry Training and Adjustment Council expects up to 40 per cent of the current workforce could retire in the next 10 years, and many of those workers are in skilled trades.

That word “skilled” is very important here. Canadian youth are entering the labour market with a wealth of computer skills but few are entering the workforce with the sort of skills sought at northern mine sites, Kitchen says.

In addition, as both Kitchen and Montpelier note, the mining industry has been booming in recent years. Keeping pace with the boom has been very difficult for human resources departments or mining companies, which must compete within the industry and with other sectors (such as oil and electricity) that are also facing shortages.

“I’ve been to petrochemical conferences where they are really talking about not being able to find enough people,” says Kitchen, who was a presenter at the Canadian Institute of Mining Conference in Montreal in early May. “I’ve been to conferences in the nuclear industry where they’re saying the same thing. They’re saying people are retiring and they can’t find enough people to replace them. Oil and gas is saying the same thing.”

“And these are the trainers … and the HR people. These are focused training and HR conferences. They’re not even sort of general production conferences. These are the people that are actually dealing with this issue and we’re hearing the same thing in all these industries.

Going overseas

Some companies are responding to the situation by looking to far-away lands for workers – though it cuts both ways. Canadian companies are recruiting in Australia while Australian companies are recruiting in Canada, for example.

Not surprisingly, bringing workers in from overseas can spark considerable controversy and ill will. In one case, Canadian Dehua International has applied to bring in 400 Chinese coal miners to operate a proposed mine in northeastern B.C. The United Steelworkers union and the B.C. Federation of Labour have denounced the plan.

Anyway, Kitchen says overseas recruitment is only one part of the prescription. “It depends upon the situation. If we have the freedom to go out and find the people we need in a global market – and it is a global market now – then we are free to recruit and find the people with the closest set of matching skills that we need. And we’ll assess those people, determine how close (their skills are) to the skills we need. And if we need to train them, we’ll train them and we’ll assure competency on what we are asking them to do. And that’s ongoing. It’s been ongoing for more than three years now.”

Another part of the winning formula involves reconfiguring skill sets to “reduce the scope of what it is that you’re going to have people do,” she adds.

“By finely defining what it is that we need people to do, it allows us to match their capabilities in a given area. It also allows us to more finely target training, to have people to do this. And that’s not to say that you don’t need certified electricians - not at all. Certainly, you’ll still have (them). It’s finely defining the tasks you’re asking people to do but not compromising on the safety in what you are asking people to do.”

The system “allows far more structured and powerful capability development and succession planning,” Kitchen says. The aim is to retain existing personnel and develop them into more demanding or senior roles. Then the process continues as new people are recruited to fill the gaps at junior levels and more training is done.

Mining and other industries are trying to capture the interest of future workers earlier in their lives, Kitchen observes.

“People are going into high schools, and they’re thinking it’s almost too late to go at high school level. People are … (making) visits to elementary schools to try to get children interested in the trades. Training people are starting to work very closely with local technical colleges, getting people trained in the technical programs they need to be able to come out and operate in industry.”

The federal government committed $2.5 million this spring to fund MIHR’s efforts to alleviate the HR crunch. MIHR’s Mining Attraction, Recruitment and Retention Strategy program includes classroom resources for school programs, a speakers bureau and web-based marketing directed at young Canadians. The Internet component includes the website acareerinmining.ca, which is up and running.

AMEC, headquartered in London, has helped businesses fill needs for skilled workers at oil rigs in the North Sea and Azerbaijan, among other places. Kitchen is confident the same approach used for those oil clients can be applied and adapted for great results in the mining industry.

“At the moment I have several proposals with mining companies because this system of ours allows us to determine what it is that everybody in the main roles and responsibilities in the organization needs to do. We can use it at a more holistic level as a hiring screen and then (follow up in more detail) as a competence assurance.”

AMEC Training and Development’s mining clients include De Beers, Placer Dome, Taseko and Teck Cominco.