Random Analytica

The commencement of this year’s analysis of mining workforce planning brings forward two very distinct but different themes. With only 1 out of every 4 stories covered for the month related to workforce planning my initial thoughts were that the story is a continuation of the Q4 story, which was of an industry that had made the necessary cutbacks both in terms of costs and suppressing IR dissent but wasn’t quite sure where to go from here. The volatility of commodity prices, especially those of iron and thermal coal add weight to this direction, given that business will always take stability in prices over price instability (even when pricing is lower).

That’s one take on the first month of data. For the last five months of 2012 the mining coverage was dominated by employment contraction reports but prior to that it was Work Health and Safety (WH&S) which had the most reporting for six out of seven months as IR peaked at 24.4% in May on the back of the BMA dispute which even led the company to declare a force majeure. So, the question has to be asked, are we seeing a return to more normalised conditions?

Figure 1: Australian Mining Workforce Planning Scan 2012 (Jan 2013). Data sourced from Australian Mining & News Archive. Some stories have been verified against primary resources.

Figure 2: Australian Mining Workforce Planning Positive/Negative Index 2012 (Jan 2013). Data sourced from Australian Mining & News Archive.

The three dominant mining Workforce Planning stories for January were WH&S (38.6%), Employ (20.5%) and FIFO/DIDO (at just 9.1%). The only category to record a positive reading was Recruit/Retain (+2), while WH&S (-6) was in the negative followed by Employ (-3) and IR (-3).

WH&S which focuses on everything safety, both good and bad is often the leading workforce planning category because mining is a hot, dirty and dangerous business. January did not commence on a good note given there were a number of serious incidents including the first reported fatality of 2013 when a Santos sub-contractor died of possible heat-stroke outside of Roma. Several other fatalities were noted in China and Indonesia and these increased the overall WH&S tally but did not add to the Pos/Neg Index as international coverage is recorded as a neutral indicator.

The Employ category which tracks employment gains, losses and general sentiment which dominated the coverage between August and December of 2012 was reduced to 20.5%. With a further 164 jobs lost in the sector and 6210 gained in 2013. You would imagine that the first indications are positive, however the $1.8Bn AUD McMahon contract win to run the Fortescue Metals Group (FMG) Christmas Creek expansion included 6000 hires. As was shown last year, when the iron ore prices tumbled mid-year FMG came under intense financial and speculative pressure. With the potential for the $AUD to rise this year and FMG’s inability to dig up its product for less than approximately $110pmt I would be concerned that, if we see further volatility in the steel index then, the employment gains might not be curtailed by global economic conditions. Overall employment sentiment was slightly negative (-3) but this was more about some ongoing cost cutting and job shedding (just 164 jobs lost) without any large pickup in new hires (210 if you exclude the McMahon contract).

FIFO/DIDO (or Fly-In Fly-Out/Drive-In Drive-Out) is a workforce planning subject unique to only a few industries and has become the dominant method of bringing in large construction and mining workforces into Australia’s remote regional areas, especially over the last decade. In many respects when I look at the FIFO/DIDO figures I also double-check against Work/Life which covers all aspects of Work Life Balance and Work Life Fit issues. At just four stories (one negative, one positive and two neutral) it wasn’t dominate but it is still on the radar for 2013. Of note was a story from my home state of Queensland which discussed tougher guidelines for FIFO with the intent of increasing development of regional areas, thus probably opening a discussion and less emphasis on pure FIFO operations over regional improvements.

Recruit/Retain which follows all aspects of recruitment and retention was the only category to record a positive number for January. As recruitment agencies put out their expected mining employment/skills wish-lists for 2013, the Mining Oil & Gas Jobs infographic (which was a little basic to be honest) generated a very large discussion (for further info see the Mining Oil & Gas Jobs website. I would also suggest that mining recruitment agencies, especially the small ones might come under some pressure this year as the sector insourced its recruitment during the latter part of 2012 as a continual cost cutting exercise while at the same time Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) comes off the boil.

Lastly, IR had just three stories, all of which were separate New Year industrial actions thus it equalled employment with a negative 3. This included a story at the Hay Point Terminal where 300 construction workers employed by McConnell Dowell and GEOSEA, have been waiting for up to four weeks to be paid! Fair enough too.

Here is a closer look at the January data.

Table 1: Data for Australian Mining Workforce Planning Scan 2012 (Jan 2013). Data sourced from Australian Mining & News Archive.

Finally, here is a look at the Mining Employment Gains/Losses tracker for 2013.

Table 2: Mining employment losses and gains 2013. Data sourced from Manufacturing Monthly Newsletter & News Archive.

To wrap up, I feel there is uncertainty in the story thus far. First of all, I am not sure at this stage we have enough data to state whether or not mining is starting to normalise or if the sector is still in its ‘wait and see’ mode. I suspect that it’s still in a ‘wait and see’ phase, especially with a federal election called for the 14^th September 2013. Secondly, I know that the mining industry is no fan of the current Labor government and would be hoping for a conservative win but not sure how that will impact on the workforce planning issues and the data.

I guess we will all have to all ‘wait and see’…

Update 1 (1/02/2013): Magda Knight (Enhance Media SEO) requested an inclusion of a link to the Mining Oil and Gas Jobs site via email. Given that I had made especial mention of their January infographic (and it’s a most reasonable request) I’ve included that link above and in a previous paragraph.