Solving the Skill Gap in Leading Economies - examples of USA, Canada, Australia and Chile

An industry’s prosperity rests on the shoulders of those who spend years becoming experts at their jobs. In the mining industry, where often the only qualifications for hiring a blue-collar worker is a driving license, experience becomes the most valuable asset.

But what happens when your senior-most operators retire…without being able to pass their skills down to the new recruits?

This is the skill gap, and it’s a growing problem in the industry. Not just the US or Canada, every economy is working to address this issue. In Australia alone, the labor demand for mining operations and projects by 2026 is projected to be ~24,400 new workers. But according to the market forecast, the supply will only be ~16,000 workers by then, and the rising vacancies will come with a wave of other problems from the miners.

When the skill gap grows, companies struggle to hire, train, and retain the talent they need to remain profitable. With increased awareness and expert testing of new technology like virtual reality as a training tool, there is a lot of potential for solutions that serve us in the short and long term.

In this article, we will look at what the leading economies are doing to curb this problem, specifically,

• The US
• Australia
• Canada, and
• Chile.

1. The US

Current mining landscape:

The focus for a long time has been mining safety, with national organizations like MSHA (Mine Safety and Health Administration) inspecting all mines each year. There are strict regulations to ensure mining training protocols, including MSHA’s 2024 ruling to have extensive safety programs written for all surface mobile equipment.

However, the critical skills gap in the country is compounding alongside the ‘grey tsunami’, referring to the expected 221,000 workers that are to retire by 2029.

Strategies to fix skill gap:

A 2023 Bloomberg article outlined how changing the image surrounding the mining space may help attract more young talent and combat the skill gap. As a result, many mining companies now market themselves as strategic employers and offer additional perks like diversity, inclusion, and upskilling programs to fill job vacancies.

Under MSHA, the country is also focused on standardizing rules for better training. Attracting younger workers to join mining is tough, but outreach programs and better policies that prioritize their needs is one way to improve recruitment rates.

The role of e-learning:

The NMA (National Mining Association) recently highlighted the integration off VR (virtual reality) and simulation-based training to improve operational efficiency. Training is not a one-size-fits-all, and digitalizing the learning process can help reduce safety risks for newer and relatively inexperienced frontline workers.

A recent study also showed that 70% of mining companies are looking to invest in e-learning software in 2024 and beyond, showing that decision makers value both flexibility and accessibility. Both training and retraining keeps miners up to date with the latest technological advancements, keeping the work productive.

2. Australia

Current mining landscape:

Currently, the country’s mines are under a real threat of operational capacity, at over 11,700 mining job vacancies, with an aging workforce and a lack of interest from young recruits. Without active measures, the Australian mining industry, similar to the US, can lose significant knowledge and expertise in the coming years.

With the looming vacancy crisis, Australian mines have been preparing for a worker shortage by investing heavily in training their current workforce to efficiently utilize the technology and equipment they have. This includes 7,689 sponsored apprenticeship and training programs to ‘create a pipeline of future talent’, costing well over $1.15 billion.

Strategies to fix skill gap:

Along with prioritising training, the country is also focused on autonomous mining to reduce human involvement for the sake of efficiency and safety in the coming years.

The catch here is, most mines are not built for autonomous functioning. At least for the next few decades, blue-collar workers are the backbone to keep mines running profitably. Proper training is the only way to bridge the skill gap as they try to employ more people. Even as more autonomous mines become operational, the miners will need proper training so they have the skill set needed for proper supervision.

The role of e-learning:

Even as the country spends millions of dollars in high-tech equipment, human talent and skill is needed to keep the machines in working conditions with regular maintenance and detailed inspections. A recent report on digitalisation in Australian mining highlighted the use of machine learning and AI to personalise training experiences for workers.

Companies like BHP are utilising comprehensive e-learning solutions that cover safety protocols, equipment operation, and environmental management. Their report shoes this has improved knowledge retention rates by 40%, highlighting the effectiveness of e-learning in enhancing workforce competencies.

These targeted training programs are working to actively address the skill gap and transfer knowledge from one generation of workers to the next.

3. Canada

Current mining landscape:

The blue-collar workforce is aging rapidly in Canada, with the job vacancy rate jumping from 2.4% in 2018 to a whopping 4.6% in 2023. Given mining is predominantly a livelihood for the indigenous people in remote areas, the Canadian government has set policies and quotas for minimum indigenous employment. This has created a wave of local communities outreach and apprenticeship programs.

The country’s economic growth depends heavily on filling these positions rapidly, with projections for the next decade needing 10,000 new workers every year to meet both the replacement and growth needs.

The British Columbia government has dedicated divisions to enhance mining-sector training in a more collaborative, inclusive, and innovative manner. An official statement said, “The sharing of knowledge to identify skills needed for today and tomorrow as well as the barriers that individuals face when accessing skills development is critical to finding a path forward to having local training for local jobs.”

Strategies to fix skill gap:

One of the biggest initiatives has been the Skills Roadmap that outlines future skills and training needs within the mining sector. The project included 120 partner representatives and 3 training mine sites (urban, rural, and remote) to equip all job holders with a transferable skills toolkit.

They documented success metrics like collaboration and provided access to resources like the CTEM provincial framework. The result—62% of miners went from having no experience in the field to reporting better employment skills to work in mining and having a MiHR Canadian Mining Skills Registry profile post-training.

NORCAT (Northern Centre for Advanced Technology) is a non-profit skilled labour training and development organisation thats’s also working to develop tech-enabled learning programs. These combine e-learning with hands-on training in an effort to address the skills shortage and give local talent the resources they need to feel start their journey as a frontline worker operating heavy machinery.

Canada’s mines employ tens of thousands of employees and it’s evident that taking care of their livelihoods is important for the government. Alongside diversity and inclusion efforts, training is the way the country is hoping to curb the skill gap issue.

The role of e-learning:

The NORCAT project combines on-site training with simulation and VR training, with trainees demonstrating a 50% increase in confidence in equipment operation after only 5 weeks of the program.

Offering the flexibility of online learning gives people on shift work or with family responsibilities the chance to still hit their targets. The Microlearning in the Mining Industry project now offers daily training sessions via smartphones, helping ~200 participants enhance their skills with short videos, all while minimising downtime.

For workers worried about job security, e-learning software for training also gives them the chance to keep up-to-date with the newest machinery and remain competitive.

4. Chile

Current mining landscape:

Although it is a smaller, developing economy, Chile is the largest exporter of mined lithium and copper worldwide. This makes the mining sector an economic pillar of the national economy, contributing 13.6% to the country’s GDP.

The country’s demand for blue-collar workers is also increasing, currently sitting close to 300,000 employees.

The high death rate in the industry is a result of lack of proper training in safety protocols and poor maintenance. While it is improving, it means that Chile’s mines have the potential to become safer and more productive with the right investment in workplace security and technical skill development.

Strategies to fix skill gap:

Increasing the training hours has been a priority over the last 5 years, growing healthily around 20-25%. But improving training does not translate to increased costs, and the Chilean mines are finding cost-effective solutions to improve their numbers, by trading expensive off-the-job training hours for e-learning and increasing focus on maintenance training.

If labor productivity in Chile decreases, mines stand to lose millions of dollars in revenue and profit. Working to boost technological competencies allows the workers to improve productivity without adding to the cost. This has also meant heavy investments (~$20 billion between 2012 and 2015) to address the challenge of better training.

The role of e-learning:

One of the biggest shifts has been in e-learning, going from just over 8% in 2018 to over 53% of the total training hours in 2022. Given the high costs of physical training, including external trainers and travel, Chile is turning to e-learning software to augment their efforts.

Online courses are a cost-effective solution and free up resources that companies can utilize more efficiently. This lets mining companies train all their workers at scale, all without compromising on the quality of information.

The self-paced format of online training pushes active participation and gives managers the tool to pass valuable knowledge from senior operators to new hires without added downtime of man or machine.

Next Steps

Every successful mining economy is working to tackle the growing skill gap problem, and everyone from individual mine managers to national governments need to work together to preserve the knowledge and pass it down to the newer generations.

At GembaPro, we specialize in e-learning for heavy industries by working collaboratively with your mine’s senior-most operators to record and preserve their experience-based knowledge before they retire.

Solving the skill gap goes beyond hiring more workers or increasing the number of training hours. It’s a consistent effort to systematically pass down skills that workers need so you can grow profits with the right practices.