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The Forum > Article Comments > Mining jobs: not much of a boom and not much of a bust? > Comments

Mining jobs: not much of a boom and not much of a bust? : Comments

By Ross Elliott, published 15/7/2016

In that same time, manufacturing (thick purple in the graph) has gone from being the largest employer to sixth largest. But it's still our sixth largest, and streets ahead of the mining sector.

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The actual graph would be helpful!
Posted by Cobber the hound, Friday, 15 July 2016 9:25:59 AM
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Exactly! We need to completely rebuild a growing and flourishing manufacturing sector and indeed instal a Leader who actually understands that is along with innovation, where our true future prosperity lies!
Alan B.
Posted by Alan B., Friday, 15 July 2016 9:59:16 AM
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Ross, you need to remove your tunnel vision glasses as it never ceases to amaze me how so many considered 'well educated' commentators fail to see the big picture with regards to mining employment.

There are literally dozens of multinational companies who perform the roll of 'project managers' and they in turn engage hundreds of large companies who actually perform the work and/or hire smaller companies or contractors to build the infrastructure that supports the mining industries.

There are the mechanics who service the thousands of vehicles, along with the electricians, plumbers and carpenters who also perform breakdown and routine maintenance on an ongoing basis.

So in actual fact, mining is a huge employer yet people like yourself often talk it down. And if you think manufacturing is going to fill the void, all I can say to you and anyone who thinks this, dream on, because we have made employing people so hard and so expensive that we have simply priced ourselves out of the market.

We now live in a society that pays people $250 per week to sit on their arse or an annualised salary of $40K a year to collect supermarket trollies.

What a joke we have become.

About our only hope is to tap into the huge CSG resource we have, to allow for affordable energy, yet this is bogged down by so much 'green tape' that nobody wants to go there. We now have major players either leaving the likes of SA, or at least contemplating the move because they cant afford the energy costs.

Its actually laughable!
Posted by rehctub, Saturday, 16 July 2016 7:05:35 AM
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Cheaper than coal thorium holds out much more hope than CSG and for far longer!

The only reason it isn't already powering Australia toward a new period of unprecedented prosperity!?

Is because of the sell our rocks to the world mentality, coupled to a bricks and mortar mindset! Further amplified by the I'm all right jack syndrome. Simply put, we can do so much better and without leaving anyone behind!
Alan B.
Posted by Alan B., Saturday, 16 July 2016 9:25:34 AM
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Alan, we have become reliant on the 'selling of our rocks to the world' simply because our hand out brigade is now so huge, we have no alternative but to do so. What should have been the icing on our cake, is now just the cake.

While I know little about what you talk about, thermo energy, is this something that we can export, or is it a 'use only' product?

If it is a use only, then great, lets do it then reduce the production costs of the likes of our rocks and CSG, so we can make plenty out of exporting them, because like it or not, well can never reclaim manufacturing to any extent whereby we export on a large scale to the world. It simply cant happen when we compare $30/hr to $5. Of cause the other hurdle is caused by the huge impost to production and efficiencies caused from the amount of issues that have to be considered from environmental, through to cultural heritage as they all add heavily to our lack of competitiveness.

But at least if we have affordable energy, our exporting costs will also be reduced.
Posted by rehctub, Saturday, 16 July 2016 9:50:28 AM
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Ross talks about social services, health care & education as being the largest & fastest growing "industries", & here I was thinking industries produced things.

So while it is true that these public funded activities keep people off the street, & provide them a good income, we should be very scared at what this means. These are not wealth generating industries, but wealth consuming activities. They can only exist if the wealth to pay for them is generated elsewhere.

With out the foreign exchange & wealth generated by the mining industry, agriculture & very few others, these consumers of wealth would have to be curtailed. Thus it is fair to see the mining industry to be seen as supporting these jobs, as without it, we could not afford them.

The car industry is not much of a loss, apart from as an import replacement activity. It required hundreds of millions of tax payer dollars to support a few thousand over paid jobs. There lies future bankruptcy.

While we have politicians like Turnbull & Shorten who can only entice votes by buying them with handouts, the only way we will go is down. Articles like this, championing public sector as the only growth area should be a warning call, to all but the rent seekers.
Posted by Hasbeen, Saturday, 16 July 2016 3:08:10 PM
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Rechub: China is or was recently experiencing 30% wages inflation, and the cheapest energy they produce is via their huge hydro and a energy losing (up to 64%) grid and distribution system!

Not that long ago a factory there laid off 5,000 workers in favor of automation. Given we can produce cheaper energy and we can thanks to cheaper than coal, thorium! We can more than compete with any other automated production anywhere!

Doable given our reserves (Thousands of years if kept here and for ourselves) of thorium and rolling it out as very local supply to produce power for just 3-4 cents per kilowatt hour, connected to and alongside specific projects, will enable us to undercut anyone whose energy supply paradigm is dearer! (The rest of the world!)

Take vehicle manufacture? Rationalising it would ensure all production took place on a single site and by just the one company and if rolled out as a co-op, utilizing the most efficient lowest costing manufacturing model, which would also actually prevent multiple tax liabilities being a cascading paradigm in local vehicle manufacture! And just one of thousands of possibilities!

And rolled out as a government sponsored co-ops because that's proven as the most cost effective manufacturing, private enterprise, free market model in the world! Everybody on the factory floor has a vested interest as working shareholders in the success and shares in any downturn or loss; and all the reason they need to flush out and remove the drones and bottlenecks!

Then we can if we so chose add the least costly tax system even as we increase the actual revenue we collect, giving the high tech energy dependant manufacturers the world over every reason to relocate here? And indeed the cashed up self funded retirees of most of western Europe!?

It can be done but won't because very powerful vested local interest and (self serving) political idealogues actively prevent it!?

Given the actual political will? It's too easy!
Alan B.
Posted by Alan B., Saturday, 16 July 2016 5:48:53 PM
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Alan B, energy is only one component of running a business, the expenses in my business are wages, energy costs then rent.

So if my power bill was even reduced to just 1/4, I would only save about $110 per week, or less than a half a days wages for a tradesman.

Even free energy will not place into a position to compete and as for automation of our industries, how do we feed our increasing unemployed?

We are very unique here in Oz, as we are a huge country, rich with resources and enjoy a great standard of living, but given we have such a tiny population, with huge appetites for lifestyles, exporting is our only option and mining is the only real answer for jobs and revenues. Anything else is purely dreaming.
Posted by rehctub, Tuesday, 19 July 2016 2:10:52 PM
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Labor thought it was real, so spending it several times over
Posted by McCackie, Sunday, 24 July 2016 9:54:46 AM
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