Mining faces serious skills shortage

As global economies climb out of the 2009 recession, the mining industry faces serious skills shortages.This is according to the third biannual Mining Survey by Landelahni Business Leaders.

The skills shortage could hamper future growth, the survey said, adding that the local industry had lost a lot of its skills development capability.

"Addressing current skills shortages demands a long-term strategic approach," Landelahni CEO Sandra Burmeister said.

"South Africa - despite being a large mining driven economy - was unable to take advantage of the commodities boom earlier this decade due to low growth in mining production."

Factors such as skills shortages, long lead times in delivery of equipment and electricity were cited as the main reasons, she said.

"As global economies recover, we must ensure that our future supply of minerals is not constrained by the same factors that inhibited supply during the last boom," Burmeister added.

This could only be achieved by a focused skills development programme, driven by sound research to supply the data - currently either hard to come by or totally lacking - to make sound management decisions, she added.

"The mining industry is competing for scarce skills with infrastructure, manufacturing and other local industries as well as in the global mining arena."

Burmeister said engineers and artisans were highly mobile due to the transferability of their skills.

"South Africa is known for its top mining expertise and is likely to continue to be a preferred poaching ground for mining talent.

"Although we produce more mining engineers than all other English-speaking countries combined, we are not producing sufficient skills to replace the ageing engineering and artisan population, let alone to gear the industry for growth."

Burmeister said that to compound this, the recession had had an impact on progress in employment and gender equity and skills development in mining.

The Landelahni Mining Survey showed that in management, professional, skilled and semi-skilled categories, employment equity in mining continued to lag behind the industry average.

"However, at 28.5 percent, it exceeds the all industry average at top management level," Burmeister said.

After a sizeable boost in 2005/6, there was a slight decline in employment equity in mining in 2008, with top management at 28.5 percent, and skilled technical workers at 50.8 percent.

Equity representation at non-executive director level showed an increase from 30 percent to 36 percent, according to the survey.

Gender equity remained fairly constant between 2006 and 2008 at top and senior levels (10 percent) and professional levels (18 percent).

"However, across all levels, mining continues to lag behind the all industry average.

"What is discouraging is a drop in blacks and women in core operational positions in the mining sector," Burmeister added.

She said the 2008 survey showed a decrease to an average of 50 percent of black and female employees in core operations, against almost 65 percent in 2006.

"In contrast, blacks and women in support roles show an increase from 35 percent to an average of 50 percent."

As mining included a large component of technical and professional staffing, Burmeister said it was critical that, apart from developing leadership and management as most organisations would do, mining should place additional emphasis on graduates, professionals and skilled workers.

Over the 11 years from 1998 to 2008, enrolments for degrees and diplomas across all engineering disciplines totalled 388 606, against 53,342 graduations -- a 13.7 percent pass rate, compared to the 25 percent international pass rate.

Some 20,819 candidates graduated with university degrees, while Technikon diploma graduates totalled 32,523.

"While we have substantially increased the number of enrolments since 2004 - close to an additional 10 000 in 2005 alone - we are not seeing the corresponding proportional increase in students completing their studies," Burmeister added.