PricewaterhouseCoopers in their 2007 survey of the British Columbia mining industry note these salaries and jobs for miners:
The average salary and benefits package in BC’s mining sector was valued at $101,900 per employee, up from $99,900 in 2006, reflecting a global shortage of experienced mining personnel. According to figures from the BC Environmental Assessment Office, there are about 20 mining projects in the pipeline for environmental assessment and review, which could potentially create around 16,000 construction jobs and eventually 15,000 operating jobs.
The income levels are way above the average in the province:
The booming B.C. economy is so far failing to translate into higher income for a large swath of residents, new census findings show. Numbers released by Statistics Canada show median earnings of full-time workers in B.C. fell 11.3 per cent between 1980 and 2005, in contrast to national figures that held steady over the last 25 years and gains measured in other provinces. Between 2000 and 2005, B.C. median earnings fell 3.4 per cent and now stand at $42,230, despite high job growth. In Metro Vancouver, median income for full-time workers was $43,215.
Seems it is all the fault of all those immigrants (I am one, so I can be constructive/destructive):
The numbers also show recent immigrants now earn only 63 cents for every dollar a Canadian-born citizen makes.
Now do you suppose there is a place for those low-paid immigrants in the booming mining economy. Is anything being done to tap into this opportunity, are we going to sit back and let them swell the ranks of ….well you name it, anything but mining.
It’s good to be back again, reading Jack Caldwell. After a couple of weeks away on vacation, I couldn’t resist reading what I’d been missing on I Think Mining. So, ever so slightly delayed, here are my comments to this posting:
First of all, it’s good to think that mining skills are well regarded, thus well paid, and that those people who choose to make a living in the mining industry are making an average $100K a year vs. the much lower $42K that their counterparts in other industries make. This begs for a comment about the benefits of being part of a productive and, yes, lucrative sector of the economy. If you could get paid more than twice than what you currently make for what you do, wouldn’t you like it better?
It seems obvious to me that mining, as an industry, not only creates jobs, but well-paid ones at that! I only wish there were more articles like this in the mass media. For that reason, I’m going to post this piece in my own blogspot. Cheers.