Western Australia could struggle to find the people needed to exploit the biggest mining boom in more than a century, the West Australian reports, because of fly-in, fly-out workers heading to other parts of Australia.

As Premier Colin Barnett called for increased immigration, including guest workers, to deal with skills shortages in WA's north, a BIS Shrapnel senior analyst warned that competition with Queensland to man projects was so intense that WA could lose out to its fellow resources State.

Australian Mining has announced that a new online forum has been developed to discuss issues of the skills shortage in the mining sector in Australia.

Mining for Skills, developed by Manpower, is an online forum hoping to engage people and companies at all corners of the resource industry, from government and resource companies to recruitment professionals and job seekers.

Reporters from Nunatsiaq Online hear from Hans Henrichsen, manager of the Greenland School of Minerals and Petroleum in Sisimiut.

"We are taking the best of the best in Greenland. Our goal is to prove that Greenland miners are as good as any around the world,” Henrichsen said March 31 to a group of visitors from Nunavut. Agnico-Eagles Mines Ltd. flew the group to Greenland following a two-day tour of the company’s gold mine in Kittilä, Finland, where the Nunavut visitors met numerous highly educated Finns who have landed good jobs in mining.

SRK Consulting partner and principal mining geotechnical engineer William Joughin tells Mining Weekly that deep-level mining in South Africa is suffering from a severe shortage of qualified rock engineers.

The ever-increasing demand for commodities is resulting in the growth of mining operations, Joughin notes.
“This significant growth is creating the demand for qualified rock engineers, which has yet to be met,” he says.
He adds that, locally, the shortage is exacerbated by rock engineers leaving South Africa to pursue other attractive opportunities in Australia and Canada.

Cole Latimer of Australian Mining reports that Minara Resources, Australia's second-largest nickel producer, is looking to increase the number of women on its mines to address the skills shortage.

Minara says about 30% of its current workforce are women.

The miner’s human resources manager Peter Bourne told the ABC that a number of campaigns are kicking off to encourage more women into mining.

“There's a lot of good work going on, I know the chamber of minerals and energy in Perth have promoted it through their women in mining celebrations recently," Bourne said.

Alberta - Online heavy equipment operator training is available from Vista Training at a reasonable cost, according to the company. Thanks to the Internet, access is convenient - whenever (on demand at any time) and wherever (remote sites or those in populated areas).

Each of the lessons is about an hour long and focuses on common tasks in the mine, says Vista. They feature integrated tests to gauge how much knowledge trainees are retaining. At the end of each program, a personalized certificate of completion can be printed.

Following the success of its launch last year, the Engineering Council and Professional Engineering Institutions (PEIs) will once again be exhibiting together on the Professional Development Hub at The National Engineering & Construction Recruitment Exhibition (NECR) at the NEC, Birmingham on 6 & 7 May 2011.

The Professional Development Hub will cover more engineering disciplines for the May exhibition, with a greater number of PEIs taking part. This means that there will be an increased number of representatives on hand to advise visitors about their professional development options, including information about institution membership and professional registration.

A training centre for unemployed people in north-west Queensland is pushing for mining and liquefied natural gas (LNG) companies to give its trainees jobs, rather than sourcing overseas labour.

The Myuma centre in Camooweal, north-west of Mount Isa, is training 30 people in roadworks, hospitality and administration industries.

Spokesman Colin Saltmere says it is negotiating with several resources companies to employ its graduates.

"The LNG [industry] need a lot, a lot of, a lot of, a lot of people and you need to be aligned with that sort of stuff," he said.

Four short courses in rock mechanics and engineering geology will be held in Vienna, Austria from June 4-10, 2011. The themes of these four courses are:

"Block Theory & Applications for Surficial and Underground Rock Excavations",
"Rock fracture Geometry characterization and network modeling in 3-D including validations",
"Rock Slope Stability Analyses" and
"Measurement and Quantification of Joint Roughness, Normal Deformation, Peak Shear Strength, Aperture and Fluid Flow through Single Joints"

The deadline for registration is 30 April 2011.