Booming mining's no longer the pits

EVERY time Sue Gogilis starts her shift driving the company truck she gives her steering wheel a good rub with a few disinfectant wipes.Gogilis, a 34-year-old mother of two, was a dental assistant until last May. Now she drives a mammoth dump truck at one of Rio Tinto's iron ore mines, hauling 230 tonnes of rock and dirt across the scorching Pilbara region in Australia's outback."They need the bodies," she said. "And so if there's a body, they don't care if it's male or female as long as it can drive the truck."
A decade ago, with prices slumping, the sense of mining as a sunset industry left it with a workforce with grey hair under its hard hats. But these days, the industry is struggling to meet burgeoning global demand for iron, copper, and other key commodities.

Now, mothers like Gogilis, former math teachers, and even Detroit car workers are being lured into mining by impressive salaries, housing, and educational benefits, helping to transform mining from what was once a dead-end job into an avenue of advancement.
The industry was suffering a depression, and the best and brightest didn't join," said Marcus Randolph, the chief organisation development officer at BHP Billiton, the world's largest mining company.

As commodity prices languished, students pursued better-paying careers elsewhere. Mining schools shrank. The average age of a production worker in mining crept up to 50. Then came the China economic boom, and India's. The Minerals Council of Australia, in a recent report, estimated that by 2015 Australia alone would need 70,000 employees on top of the 120,000 it has now to keep up with demand.

At a local job fair, Eason stopped at the booth of P&H Mining Equipment, which makes the giant shovels used in mines. Workers like Eason with compatible skills from auto factories and other industries are highly coveted by mining companies. Eason now works for one of P&H's subsidiaries in Wyoming's coal country.

With modernisation has come increasing mechanisation. Many mining workers nowadays need education levels and skills more common to urban white-collar professionals.

"You can't just come out of the paddock and pick up a pick and shovel and go down in the mine," Hooke said.

That need for higher skills makes life even harder for mining companies that are venturing further afield in search of ore.

That kind of schedule suits Brian Okely, a 42-year-old from Western Australia. Okely spent 12 years as a telephone repairman until he learned that he could double his pay in mining. In November, Okely started repairing trucks at one of Rio's Pilbara mines. Best of all, he said, he gets a full week off to spend quality time with his wife and three children. "Family's more important than money," he said.

Still, attrition and divorce rates among miners remain high. A study last year by Macquarie Research and the Australasian Institute of Mining found turnover among mine workers was as high as 25 per cent. "They work long hours and they need people who are willing to travel a lot," said Bruce Elliott, who recruits for the resources industry at Korn/Ferry in Sydney. "Young people will do it out of university. But then they get to a point where they say 'I don't want to travel now'."