DOLE fears shortage of mining industry workers

Where are the Filipino miners?

The Philippines may have to "import" foreign miners due to lack of qualified people to work in multi-billion peso investments to explore the country’s mining potentials, the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) said yesterday.

A 30-page DOLE "think paper" said the country’s diminishing supply of "core professions"–geodetic and mining engineers, metallurgists and geologists, may become insufficient to fill in the growing demand for professional mining workers.

The study projected the demand for core professionals to reach 39,380 from 2005 to 2010, but the supply was only estimated to reach 875 in the same period.

The dwindling supply of skilled mining workers was caused by several related factors, including the small number of tertiary schools offering mining-related courses, the study added.

Latest data also showed that only 40.8 percent of the graduate geodetic engineers have passed government board examinations. The course is one of the three with the lowest passing rates among the nine government-regulated geosciences professions.

As for the few who graduate and pass the examinations, those not lured by overseas jobs are often "pirated" or "poached" by competing mining firms.

The high cost of educating geosciences professionals is also considered as one of the possible reasons for the drop in supply.

"The decline in enrollment in mining-related courses threatened to decimate the current and future ranks of professionals and skilled workers vital to the operation of local mining firms," the study said.

"When local supply cannot meet the demand in terms of professional competency, such situation can be abused to justify the hiring of expatriates to fill skilled positions," the study said.

The demand for low-skilled positions could also lead to the hiring of laborers willing to be underpaid or to work in hazardous sites, or worse, child laborers.

Nelia Halcon, Chamber of Mines of the Philippines executive vice president, said the percentage of total employment in the mining sector –estimated at 125,000 last year –was not significant owing to its equipment-intensive nature.

"Although not considered labor intensive, experts in the field says that for every job generated in the industry, a corresponding five jobs are created in the upstream and downstream activities in the sector," she said.

Recently, some well-trained technical personnel have been taken by mine firms in Indonesia, Malaysia and Vietnam, she added.

Halcon said as mining firms escalate their operations, they would be needing more and more skilled workers and specialists who can operate and maintain new technologies applied in mining.

"This will pose a serious problem in the industry considering that these workers need to be trained before they are immersed in actual mining," she said.

Between 10 and 20 percent of the 125,000 people employed in the mining sector last year came from the metallic sector –or those working in mines that produce metals such as gold, copper, zinc.

The rest are contributed by non-metallic sector, which includes those working in quarrying.

To produce future stocks of skilled workers, DOLE proposed that more government scholarships and grants be made available to deserving geosciences students.

Mining firms should also invest in the education and training of students and the host community residents as part of their corporate social responsibility, the study said.