An answer to Canada’s mining skills shortage

While economists and labour market researchers agree one of Canada’s greatest challenges over the next decade will be how to solve skilled worker shortages, there seems to be no consensus about just how to do that.

The skills shortage will be particularly acute all across northern Canada, where natural resource development and mining projects are projected to grow the northern economy more than 90 per cent from 2011 to 2020. Led by northern B.C.’s mining output, which will increase by a whopping 300 per cent, that is more than four times the growth rate forecast for the Canadian economy over that same period. And while that is good news on many fronts, the fact that many of the largest mining projects are close to remote First Nations communities without particularly well skilled or educated populations is cause for growing concern.

Our work in essential skills assessment and training for mining jobs with the James Bay Cree First Nation in northwestern Quebec has taught us some valuable lessons about what employers can do to maximize human resources in remote aboriginal communities.

For mining companies setting up operations on or near aboriginal land, get to know the people who live in the communities near your mine. They are probably very young (almost half under the age of 25) and more than half of them probably do not have a high school education. In some remote northern communities, that figure is closer to three-quarters. With high school graduation rates in First Nations schools across the country running at about 35 per cent, these numbers are unlikely to change much during the life of your mine. This group of young men and women is the most important, affordable and accessible source of labour for your mine. How can you make the most of it?

First, target the women. Get women directly involved in recruitment. The belief that mining is a “man’s job” and a mine is a “man’s world” is as commonplace today in the north as it is in the south. To break down that stereotype, you need women who have proven it false by their own effort and success. In most remote, aboriginal communities, that is not a professional, university-educated woman. It is someone like the Cree woman here who spent a year as a dishwasher in a work camp and, each day as she watched the big 20-ton trucks drive by, said to herself, “I could be doing that.” And you know what? She could. And she did. Enrolled in a training course, graduated top of her class and today works as a heavy equipment operator. If you are serious about attracting First Nations women, that’s the kind of woman to profile in your recruiting brochures and include on your hiring committees.

Second, design training programs specifically for aboriginal women. Our experience here suggests Cree women have as many — or more — basic literacy and numeracy skills than Cree men. They are the building blocks for the technical and onthe-job training most aboriginals will need if they want to work in the mines. Vocational instructors tell us women are consistently among their top students. On-site trainers and mine supervisors tell us female employees take better care of their equipment and pay more attention to detail than their male counterparts. But women are not enrolling in mining-related training programs and they are not applying for jobs at the mines. In spite of the fact that women are more likely to be high school graduates and make up 50 per cent of the population across Cree territory, less than 10 per cent of all the participants in mining-related training programs in this part of northern Quebec are women. Why?

Employers need to understand that until their young children are taken care of, most aboriginal women are simply not going to consider mining a viable employment option. Doing all you can to provide quality affordable child care, whether in nearby aboriginal communities or at mine sites themselves, is the single most effective way to attract more aboriginal women to mining in the north.

If you are operating near aboriginal communities, consider funding day cares in communities close to your mines. If there are waiting lists for access, do all you can to ensure women who want to work for you have a spot for their young children. And if there aren’t any licensed early learning and care programs nearby, see how you can help set one up.

If you operate a remote, fly-in, fly-out mine where young mothers will have to spend 12 or 14 days at a time on the job and away from their children, consider providing onsite childcare. Too big an expense? Maybe. But companies typically spend millions of dollars equipping their remote camps with weight and exercise rooms, indoor hockey rinks and an assortment of recreational equipment for their predominantly male workers. Why not match that with child care facilities for employees with young children? You will diversify your workforce by attracting and retaining more women employees. And over time, such an investment in aboriginal women may well pay off in helping keep aboriginal families together and strengthening the social fabric of remote, First Nations communities.

Addressing skills shortages in the north will require a long-term investment in northern communities, many of them aboriginal. Aboriginal women are an excellent place to start and an untapped resource that could go a long way in helping solve the problem.