Mining and the human-robot substitution

In the next ten years, the mining industry is set to lose between 40% and 80% of direct and indirect jobs due to the impact of automation technologies such as self-driving trucks, automated loaders, autonomous drilling systems, automatic tunneling machines and self-driving long distance trains that carry materials from mines to ports. In reality, we’re not talking here about technologies of the future but the present, and that are being tested. In the United States alone, mining generated 634,600 direct jobs and more than 1.3 million indirect jobs in 2014.

There are some very good reasons why mining is a suitable sector for the replacement of human workers by robots: it is a capital-intensive industrythat demands the acquisition of very expensive specialized equipment, and where wages are relatively high. Mine working is hard, carried out in extreme and dangerous conditions: an environment where automation can make a real difference.

In the video, a self-driving truck developed by Volvo for an underground mine:

A report by the International Institute for Sustainable Development, entitled “Mining a mirage? Reassessing the shared-value paradigm in light of the technological advances in the mining sector,” provides details about the technological advances that are enabling this automation and bringing about changes drastic changes to the workforce, which will no long be involved in the extraction, loading, drilling, processing or transportation of materials and instead will simply supervise machines. Automation will reduce the number of operative workstations in areas like drilling, blasting or managing trains and trucks, areas that usually represent over 70% of employment in the mines.

Conversely, new jobs related to the observation, inspection and maintenance of remote-controlled teams will appear, along with the need to analyze processes. This will require workers with expertise in systems and automated remote control who will either be retrained or hired new.

Although we tend to see job losses as negative, and if asked, many miners would probably prefer to continue working, even in harsh conditions. But is it right for people to continue to work in harsh conditions and environments when they can be replaced with specialized machinery able to do their job better and more cheaply?

Is it even worth trying to compete with mines that have introduced wholescale mechanization and automation, thus achieving lower operating costs? Some studies point to productivity gains of 20%, and savings in areas such as fuel of 15%. Clearly, there is no turning back from automation.

Wherever a human can be advantageously replaced by a machine, that replacement will take place. If your industry is capital intensive, requires specialized assets and pays relatively high wages, now you know: automation is here, and that is a good thing. That means the old jobs will be replaced by far fewer completely new ones. And even if you don’t work in such an industry, pay heed. The trend applies to just about every area. Jobs are for machines.

(En espa?ol, aquí)