The mining industry of Canada has been engaging with plenty of communities spanning from both coasts of the country. The industry is more significantly present on remote regions in the North and on communities of the indigenous. It requires a great amount of workforce from both the aforementioned communities and in large urban areas.
As the industry faces the challenges of labour shortage and the continuous growth of technology-reliance, it must adapt and thoroughly refine the approach through making adjustments on how to add variety, provide training, and promote improvement on its workforce.
The mining industry must also further develop the relationships between mining companies and those key partners that increasingly recognize and oblige the secure buy-in for projects that are in their pre-planning phase. The Spotlight aims to explore how the Canadian mining industry tackles the issues mentioned in order to prepare for the future.
Key Points
Mining companies must cooperate with academic institutions to design the effective path of development for students. The mining leaders need to change their strategy in employing the next generation of the workforce by focusing on talent acquisition to model that emphasize continuous learning on students as early as in high school.
Financial incentives are encouraging mining companies from Ottawa and other provinces to hire more females and have them engage from 17% of the workforce to 30% by 2030 in the industry through programs and certain initiatives.
Mining companies must be engaging with First Nations in order to create a successful partnership. They have to recognize and respect the First Nations’ rights and interests to have true economic impact. Earning their trust has to be the companies’ priority to avoid difficulties in making economic transactions.
Indigenous leaders have become more participative – from being territorial to being active members in the mining workforce. Now, they are aiming to participate in the top management and ownership of mining projects of the sector.