A global-scale metal producer will guide and reskill more beginners after struggling to find experienced people who are ready to work.
Northern Star Resources needs a lot more workers to help its KCGM operations expand gold production from 65 million tonnes per annum (mtpa) to as much as 100 mtpa.
“With that you need a lot of people,” chief executive Stuart Tonkin said in a webcast to investors. “We are expecting to need extra people to drive that business growth.”
$250M invested
To help address a 10 per cent vacancy rate across its workforce, the proponent has pumped $250 million into a new truck fleet and developed a variety of incentives to make the workplace appeal more to job seekers.
“We are working on all of those creative things to attract and retain and bring people to the city,” Tonkin said. “It is no particular discipline across tech staff or blue collar … [and] it is clean, I like gold – I do not come home dirty.”
Full training
The company is so keen to hire that it will consider fully training anyone who wants a career in mining and is available to work.
“One thing that we have always done and continue to do and increase is investment in training with those apprentices, graduates, entry-level operators,” Tonkin said.
“We keep doing that because that is the way to solve these upskill, reskill to add that to the pool as opposed to just competing, driving up costs and trying to steal other people’s staff.”
Hiring now
The following positions have been advertised:
- open pit technical services superintendent
- maintenance technicians (multiple positions)
- all rounder surface operators (multiple)
- trainee truck operators (multiple)
- haul truck operators (multiple)
- senior geotechnical engineer
- senior environmental advisor
- production shovel operator
- underground mine surveyor
- light vehicle mechanic
- geologists (multiple)
- shotfirers (multiple)
- process technician
- geology technician.
Click here to apply. Successful applicants will be offered an excellent remuneration package, bonuses, and a day or night roster of either eight on six off, seven on seven off, five on two off, or four on three off. Shift length varies between 10 and 12.5 hours.
FIFO applicants accepted
Tonkin will consider fly-in fly-out (FIFO) applicants for short-term or “stop start” work, and hopes they will find Kalgoorlie to be a great place to live and eventually call it home.
“We are trying to get people to relocate to Kalgoorlie and feed the growth of KCGM, so that is extra truck drivers and extra labour in the plans and growing all of the projects, exploration [and] all of that activity,” he said.
“The multi-decade operation gives people the confidence to up and relocate, and establish themselves there because you have got that longevity … [and] as soon as we demonstrate we can have long mine life, people can make long-term decisions and the confidence is there.”
Click here to apply for FIFO positions.
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