Week in Review – 17 March 2012

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It doesn’t take long before we come around to our two favourite subjects – the resources boom and the skills shortage. Most jobseekers already know it’s not easy breaking in but it was encouraging to read the real demand for workers is going to start rolling out over the next three years. Gina Rinehart is going ahead with a new mining project and Rio Tinto creates a mining chair at the University in New South Wales. While we might all be thinking green for St. Patrick’s Day, in WA it’s all about gold.

Here’s what we were reading this past week:

Courier Mail

• Mining jobs not easy to unearth with jobs boom still three years away - Brett Bailey has spent almost $5000 on courses and certificates and written hundreds of applications in a bid to get a job as a haul-truck driver in the state's mining industry.

The Sydney Morning Herald

• Mining racks up 44,600 new jobs over a year - The mining industry has leapt into second place as the nation's biggest provider of new jobs behind only health and aged care.

• Mining can't bail out all the jobless, industry warns - The mining industry has warned it cannot soak up the tens of thousands of workers being shed by manufacturing, saying it wants workers with specific skills, such as tradesmen.

The Australian

• Mining boom can lift whole economy - Australia needs reforms to maximise growth in a mining boom. Surging Asian demand provides a tremendous opportunity for Australia. Yet we are arguing mainly about sector winners and losers and distribution issues

• Skills glut builds as European projects stall - Redundant workers from European construction giants are following their former employers to Australia in a desperate bid to find work.

• Rinehart pushes on with $7bn Roy Hill mine project - Gina Rinehart will seek to dampen speculation that a bitter family feud has threatened her planned $7 billion Roy Hill iron ore mine by unveiling this week the project's equity partners, including a $1.5bn cash injection from Korean steel giant Posco.

Australian Mining

• Rio creates mining chair at UNSW - Rio Tinto Northparkes Mines has created a professorial chair in geotechnical engineering at the University of NSW.

• Remote control your mine [blog] - Investment in remote mining technology has reached a tipping point. What was once talked about as a future trend is now a tangible reality with remote solutions used daily for many mines.

• WA home to top 4 gold mines - Western Australia is home to the nation's top four producing gold mines, with Australia remaining the world's second largest gold producer in 2011, according to Surbiton Associates.

• Port Hedland approves BHP's modified FIFO camp - The Town of Port Hedland has approved BHP Billiton's revised plans for a fly-in fly-out camp after rejecting its previous offer.

Science Daily

• Nanotrees Harvest the Sun's Energy to Turn Water Into Hydrogen Fuel - University of California, San Diego electrical engineers are building a forest of tiny nanowire trees in order to cleanly capture solar energy without using fossil fuels and harvest it for hydrogen fuel generation.

If you’re interested in working in the Australian resource industry, make sure to register for our Jobs Expo being held in Perth, 25-26 May.

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What caught your eye this week?