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If you’re in Canada and you’re looking for a mining job, the next few months don’t look promising.
Canadian mining companies are becoming increasingly unwilling to add employees to their payrolls and are reporting the weakest hiring intentions since Q3 2009, according to a recent employment outlook survey by Manpower.
The Manpower Employment Outlook Survey is conducted quarterly to measure employers’ intentions to take on or lay off staff. The Net Employment Outlook takes the percentage of employees anticipating total employment to increase and subtracts from it the percentage expecting to reduce staffing numbers.
Of the Canadian mining companies surveyed, 14% said they plan on hiring over the first quarter of 2014 and 13% plan on downsizing. Adjusted for seasonal variation, this puts Canada’s mining Net Employment Outlook at 5% – a 2% drop on the previous quarter, and 3% drop on Q1 2013.
Tied with the transportation and public utilities sector, the mining sector has the lowest Net Employment Outlook of all industries surveyed in Canada.
The hiring climate remains steady among other industries, with construction companies reporting the strongest job prospects – 16% of survey respondents say they’re looking to hire.
The job climate for Canadian miners is worse than in the US. Manpower’s US report shows that 11% of mining companies are looking to hire more workers during the first quarter of 2014.
In Australia, the mining sector’s seasonally-adjusted Net Employment Outlook stands at 1% for the next quarter – a moderate gain on the prior quarter.
