In the last 25 years, the percentage of Aboriginal workers in Rio Tinto's Australian workforce has gone from 0.5 to 8. Today, The Australian reports, the company is believed to be the biggest private-sector employer of indigenous Australians.

At the company’s Argyle diamond mine in the Kimberley, for example, almost 25 per cent of the workforce is Aboriginal. In the booming iron ore country of the Pilbara, where 13 per cent of the population is Aboriginal, Rio aims to lift indigenous employment by 1 per cent a year.

This two-day course presented by Market Motion Media, Inc. will be held 6-7 June at the Pan Pacific Hotel in Vancouver, B.C., 9-10 June at the Sheraton Centre, Toronto, and 17-18 October in London.

Mine-finders, fund managers, accredited investors, mining company officers, prospectors, and investor relations officers will benefit from a two-day accredited course featuring Dr. David Groves on how to apply geology's lessons when evaluating junior mining companies and their properties.

Clancy Yeates at WAtoday reports on the eye-popping salaries being received by mining and gas project workers in Western Australia as a result of a massive skills shortage.

At an offshore gas project, for example, a welder can pocket more than $300,000 a year, and some are seeking more than $400,000 in the next round of negotiations. On dry land, a worker who makes the beds or cleans at an isolated mining project can also expect a six-figure pay packet. As for the staff at McDonald's in the Pilbara's resources hub of Karratha, many of them are flown in and out by their employer because there aren't enough locals willing to do the job.

Northwest Community College in Smithers is preparing students for jobs in the mining industry, and boasts a high success rate, especially amongst local First Nations, reports Opinion 250 News. Their Workforce Exploration Skills Training program focusses on hand-on training, with students spending seven weeks at a mining training camp outside of Smithers.

The hands-on experience and classroom instruction includes: drill core technician training and cultural resource assessment; prospector basic training; training as a mining exploration field assistant; and industry-related safety certification. WEST has seen 80-percent of its graduates move on to jobs. About three-quarters of program participants are Aboriginal.

MiningNews.net reports that the Cut, a simulated underground training mine in Perth, is attracting attention from mining specialists all over the world. Training specialist Barminco is arranging several tours in the next few weeks, with visitors from as far afield as Chile.

"We’ve put a bit of time and money into setting this up," Barminco training co-coordinator Steve Motion said. "From an induction point of view, I think it will be a pretty good idea for putting what we call green people or new people through, just to give them that feeling of what it’s like to go underground and how an underground mine works."

Professor Fathi Habashi, EduMine author and Professor Emeritus at Laval University, is bringing back interest in extractive metallurgy with his Comprehensive Extractive Metallurgical Workshop - "an important international learning platform where the latest advances in the field are shared amongst the participants both formally and informally."

Low literacy may be keeping hundreds of applicants in Washington and Greene County (U.S.A.) from taking up the new wealth of entry-level mining jobs to be created in the next several years, Observer-Reporter reports.

...hundreds of applicants from Washington and Greene counties can't be considered for employment as so-called "white-cap" entry-level miners, earning more than $22 per hour and full benefits, because they're coming up short on basic reading and math skills.

Northern College is helping to address the shortage of skilled miners with its Hard Rock Miner Training program at Kirkland Lake campus, developed through a partnership with Kirkland Lake Gold Inc.

Created through a partnership between the school and the mid-tier gold miner, the program has provided an opportunity for those returning to the North in search of permanent full-time employment. “It is so gratifying to see those who are highly motivated and never had a chance of getting in...this is their big break,” said Rose-Lyne D'Aoust-Messier, training consultant of apprenticeship, workforce development and training at Northern College's Kirkland Lake campus.

The Maitland Mercury has reported that Xstrata Coal has dedicated $320,000 of its corporate social involvement program to help train 14 new apprentices at the Hunter Valley Training Company.

HVTC chairman Milton Morris said the funding they received from Xstrata was always the “strawberry on the cake” for their programs.

“Not only does this money pay the wages of these young apprentices, but after we train them there is a place for them with one of Xstrata’s sub-contractors,” Mr Morris said.