Mining Recruitment And Labour Hire Companies: Communicate Your Values To Mining Employers With Print

Last month, we shared a handy Australian Mining Event Calendar 2022/23 and tips for mining vendors on how to ‘Organise your print marketing assets early to maximise your impact at mining trade expos’. 

Today, we focus on mining recruitment and labour hire companies: How to maintain positive associations with mining employers and potential recruitment candidates throughout fluctuating hiring cycles in a COVID-adapted world. This blog post covers:
Mining recruitment landscape 2022

• Challenges for mining recruiters and labour hire companies
• Opportunities for mining recruiters and labour hire companies
• Handy checklist of print marketing solutions

Mining recruitment landscape 2022

Australia’s mining workforce exceeds 270,000 personnel and the industry has grown by 23.1% in the past five years.

• Understandably, COVID had a sharp negative impact on the sector in 2020, causing a steep -12.1% dip in annual growth in 2021. 
• However, there has been a quick partial bounce-back to a less severe protraction of -1.18% in 2022, and the five-year average is still positive at 4.1%. 

The initial steep disruption of COVID seems to be over, and high vaccination rates herald a shift that will see us living a new normal with COVID in our midst. 
The next five-year forecast for the Australian mining sector is optimistic, as the industry is expected to continue with recovery. Furthermore, more than three out of four mining companies worldwide are increasingly digital mining operations to boost safety and productivity.  
What will 2022 bring? 

Challenges for mining recruiters and labour hire companies

Mining recruiters and labour hire companies juggle both COVID-specific and existing pre-COVID issues related to the supply and demand of the mining workforce. Collectively, these challenges are:

• Talent shortage. Insufficient local talent, requiring importing of talent from other Australian states as well as overseas. During COVID restrictions, the supply of both specialist and non-specialist mining jobs are even more acutely affected. 
• Skills and labour shortage. The short supply is due to insufficient appropriately trained or experienced personnel for specialist mining roles as well as new tech-enabled mining roles.
• Strict entry requirements for employees. More stringent criteria include relevance of experience, regulatory mandates, licensing compliance, as well as criminal and drug use profiles. 
• Employer disadvantage in labour hire models. Employers report having to deal with contractor disloyalty, inflexibility and higher cost of labour when dealing with labour hire companies.

Opportunities for mining recruiters and labour hire companies

The most successful mining recruiters and labour hire companies find ways to keep adding value to both mining employer clients and recruitment candidates. They do well to review how they keep both groups happy, and get better at matching supply with demand in ways that they may not have considered before.

Stake a bigger presence at expos and events

Seize opportunities to make new connections with interested potential candidates and mining employers alike en masse. 

• The next recruitment fair in Perth is the Careers Expo 2022 on 12 to 15 May 2022 at the Perth Convention and Exhibition Centre.
• Attend mining events like those on this list of upcoming mining events for 2022 which are held in Perth as well as online.  

Explain your value better with tangible marketing assets  

The advantages that your business provides potential mining hires are plenty for the potential employee. They can get a quick and easy feel for the work culture of a mining company, and enjoy flexible, interesting and varied work projects. They will be supported in the whole recruitment process.   
When wooing potential candidates, if you can leverage the huge variety of print marketing solutions to interact tangibly with prospective candidates, your business is more likely to make a lasting impression on them. 

Connect with apprenticeship programs

Evangelise roles in high schools and facilitate the discovery of more talent with the right aptitude and skills, and facilitate their enrolment in attractive apprenticeship programs. 

Collaborate with training providers

Collaborate with private and public educational institutions to discover and facilitate the supply of skilled mining talent. Invest in helping them understand what you can provide through workshops and presentations.

Mine passive recruitment market 

Find skilled talent not yet in the active job search market, nurture relationships, and simplify processes to facilitate more successful job transfers. 

Tangible marketing assets

For successful apprenticeships, training collaborations, and wooing passive employee prospects, you want to step forward with a strong and confident brand presence at face-to-face information sessions, Zoom meetings, and discussions. Make sure you are well-supported by marketing assets like convenient pull-up banners and professionally designed and printed marketing collateral.