Employment in Western Australia’s (WA) mining industry is at record levels, rising for the eighth consecutive year, but the state’s boom has exposed a severe shortage of skilled labour – with industry leaders warning that government and employers must do more to keep pace.
Government data shows that in 2024, WA, which accounts for 47 per cent of Australia’s total mining workforce, registered a record high of 135,693 on-site full-time equivalent (FTE) roles.
Iron ore, largely concentrated in the Pilbara, remains dominant, with 65,359 positions — up 4,500 FTE, while WA’s resurgent gold sector employed 33,285 workers, up 3,000 FTE across the Goldfields and mid-west.
The growth trajectory is set to continue.
According to Gavin Lind, CEO of the Mining and Automotive Skills Alliance (AUSMASA), which published its workforce plan Insights for tomorrow in August 2025, WA is expected to account for 40 per cent of the nation’s resource workforce growth over the next five years.
“Many traditional manual roles are evolving, creating new opportunities for upskilled professionals and technical newcomers in the mining sector,” Lind said.
Yet despite the headline figures, the boom hides deeper imbalances.
Skills shortages are growing more severe, vacancies remain at record highs, and underground mining operators in particular are struggling to fill roles.
Recruitment agencies say the tightest gaps are in critical technical areas.
“There is acute demand being witnessed in every technical discipline across mine geology, engineering and processing, with the underground environment the biggest driver for the significant demand lift,” said Steve Heather, managing director of WA-based MPI Recruitment.
Underground technical skills are in “hot demand,” he added, warning: “We can only see this getting tighter in the short-to-medium term; a big driver [is] the need to maintain very unique safety standards across the underground environment.”
Heather stated that even with layoffs in open-pit operations, “open-pit mining skills are not easily transferrable in the short-to-medium term to underground mines” – a factor that compounds shortages.
The picture is complicated further by weak commodity prices for lithium and nickel, which have forced several WA operations into care and maintenance, including BHP’s Nickel West and IGO’s Cosmos projects.
Nickel job losses totalled more than 3,200 FTE in 2024–25.
“Employer reports indicate that WA’s mining workforce underwent significant changes during 2024–25,” Lind stated.
He noted that BHP cut around 100 iron ore roles, while its nickel closures affected 800 jobs, many of which were redeployed.
Rio Tinto also reduced its Pilbara workforce by about 500, outsourcing site services trades roles as part of cost-cutting.
While Tier 3 and Tier 4 operators are “really feeling the pinch,” according to Dani Tamati, founder of THE resources HUB, large miners remain more insulated.
“The Tier 1s are not seeing that trickle down as much at the moment, as happened in the downturn of 2012,” she explains.
One partial solution has been to rely on migrant workers.
“The number of skilled migrants has increased over the years, indicating an ongoing need for their skills,” Lind stated.
But visa costs and training expenses remain prohibitive.
Harriet Banda, founder of Bantu Agency, stated: “The cost is prohibitive and there is no scale. Whether your business makes $100m or $2m you still pay the 482 visa cost, which is unfair.”
Employers are also using financial incentives to win over candidates.
Tamati noted that one client introduced a sign-on bonus, a six-month retention bonus, and then ongoing monthly payments.
“They were paying at the lower end for mechanical trades but with the retention bonus it was keeping their employees happy,” she said.
Smaller operators, she added, struggle to keep up with wages as “the bigger boys can throw money around and offer more perks.”
While women now make up 24.8 per cent of WA’s mining workforce, the figure lags behind the national workforce average of 48 per cent.
AUSMASA data shows gender pay gaps across 95 per cent of companies.
Tamati, however, is critical of quota-driven approaches.
“It is merely setting up many of these women to fail within their careers, because they are literally a tick-the-box exercise,” she said.
Apprenticeships remain another underdeveloped source of skills. AUSMASA cites low completion rates and barriers for international students who cannot gain placements during study.
Tamati is blunt: “Apprentices are the first to be let go, yet they are the cheapest labour in the mining industry.
“Then when the next upturn happens, we don’t have any tradespeople, which is why we need to bring in sponsored people from the UK, Ireland and Africa, etc.”
Looking ahead, WA has 48 proposed resource projects that will require more than 11,000 new workers by 2029, with the biggest needs in mining operations.
Nationally, mining could demand another 56,000 workers by 2033, on top of current shortages.
Lind says AUSMASA’s priorities include educational pathways, diversity, digitalisation, workforce retention and wellbeing.
However, many argue that government support is still lagging.
Tamati stated the building sector receives far more direct training incentives, while Heather added: “Right now, an awful lot of the heavy lifting is being left to the industry itself via its various associations and employer groups – but when you consider the huge contribution this industry makes to the Australian economy, why is the government not acting in its role of active industry partner?”
