The Great Canadian Mining Brain Drain

For years the most talented Canadians have looked south for higher salaries and better career opportunities.

At the same time the mining industry struggles to find and retain skilled personnel.

It seems the Canadian Mining industry is experiencing a brain drain double whammy. (I think that's the technical term for it.)

Whats happening?

In the mining sector, the industry as a whole is facing push and pull factors that are contributing to a chronic labour shortage.

The mining and mineral sector continues to deal with the perception as a dirty industry and the effects of this are being seen in post secondary enrollment statistics. In Australia, the total number if mining graduates fell 63% in 2020 from 2014. In Canada mining and mineral-engineering enrollment was down 10% in 2020 from 2016.

At the same time, potential mining talent is being enticed by increasingly competitive salaries in the clean energy sector. Renewable energy firms expect to create more than 10.3 million new jobs globally by 2030.

For Canadian miners the impacts of an industry brain drain is even more dire. While dealing with a lack of new hires entering the talent pipeline, Canadian miners also struggle to retain the talent that is cultivated north of the 48th parallel.

Many young Canadian mining graduates look to other countries for better pay, such as Australia. For many professionals early in their career, the prevailing view is to gain a few years of experience in the great white north, before heading down under where mining professionals can expect a 10-30% pay increase, and often more, depending on the position.

All salaries used reflect national averages and are expressed in thousands of Canadian dollars. This is not an exhaustive list. (Hays, 2023.)

One mining professional summed up the mentality quite nicely: ‘’If you can walk, talk and have a degree, head to Perth.’’

Looking forward, if the industry doesn’t act to reverse the trend, the success of the Canadian mining industry could be at risk. According the Mining Industry Human Resources Council, the Canadian mining industry expects to require 80,000 more workers before 2030, and without any changes to current labour trends, expects 5,000 of these positions to remain vacant.