Engineering Recruitment, Engineers Recruitment, Engineering Employment, Engineering Professionals, Engineering Jobs, WA, Australia

The final report of the government’s National Resources Sector Employment Taskforce proposes access to streamlined training and skilled migration and joint funding for “fly in, fly out” co-ordinators to better link skilled workers to remote sites. Modelling commissioned by the taskforce warns of labour market tightening in Western Australia and parts of Queensland by late 2011 and predicts a shortfall of 36,000 tradespeople in the resources sector by 2015. The number of mining jobs is expected to rise by 4.9% a year over the next five years. Shortfalls of mining engineers and geoscientists will be targeted in a bid to attract people with these qualifications who work in other industries and stem large student drop-out rates. Temporary migration would also be overhauled as part of the reforms, with five-working-day deadlines for visa processing and new “enterprise migration agreements” that will build on state migration plans and allow businesses to quickly access skilled migrants during the construction phase of large projects.

Excerpt from: The Australian Financial Review (www .afr .com), 17 July 2010