ABS quarterly detailed labour force figures suggest the demand for skilled workers across key occupations and emerging resources markets remain strong despite a small dip in Australia’s total ‘mining’ employment numbers. The resource industry’s owned-and-operated careers website AMMA miningoilandgasjobs.com conducts regular analysis of ABS labour force figures against trends on its public jobs board.
Site Director of AMMA miningoilandgasjobs.com, Kyla Jones said “Due to softening commodity prices and some project deferrals the 2% decrease in total mining employment, according to the ABS data, came as little surprise to the resource industry. It is clear that after a decade of being the fastest growing source of employment in Australia, averaging 25% annual growth, greater focus on regulatory reform to increase Australia’s productivity and competitiveness is required to sustain these long-term opportunities.
“However with 1500 job vacancies on AMMA miningoilandgasjobs.com alone, we continue to experience strong recruitment activities by most sectors of the resource industry, particularly for skilled and technical positions. Our site shows the highest demand remains for engineers, maintenance workers, designers and drafters, machinery operators and skilled trade workers. It’s also encouraging to see the Northern Territory, New South Wales and Victorian resource sectors created an extra 4,500 jobs combined during this quarter.”
Today’s ABS Labour Force figures show as of May 2013, 261,100 Australians were employed as a result of investment in the country’s mining, oil and gas projects.
$268 billion worth of resource projects remain under construction in Australia while 287 additional projects are still being considered, potentially worth $354 billion to the nation.
“As more of these projects reach final investment decision and come online over coming months and years, AMMA miningoilandgasjobs.com expects skills demand and recruitment activity within our industry to remain very strong,” Ms Jones says.
“If this pipeline of projects can be secured for our shores through creating an environment more conducive to investment, government estimates tell us that the construction demands alone could create around 135,000 new jobs by 2018. Much of this future demand will be driven by the emerging LNG sector, with key skilled tradespeople such as boilermakers and welders already in short supply and among the most sought after occupations on our website.”