Australia

[Gavin Luper]

Large parts of this are folklore.

Mining jobs are generally highly sought after with tons of applicants (especially the less skilled ones), and have absurdly low job security (read: if we take another GFC like hit they'll fire 2-3x as many staff as the other sectors).


You do get paid well in the short term, but it's high risk and doesn't always pay well in the long run because of the high rates of retrenchment & long periods of unemployment that can follow.

It's not folklore. I'm basing this on 1) living in WA, 2) loads of my mates and other people I grew up with getting jobs in the mining sector quite easily and getting paid really well, and 3) processing credit applications for miners who do fly-in, fly-out work and, assessing their payslips for this on a regular basis, I can guarantee you that they do get paid exceptionally well, and that a lot of these people earning $100k+ per annum are, as I said, 18-year-old bogans.

I agree it's a high risk job, of course - but that explains the high pay.

[Leon-IH]

It's not folklore. I'm basing this on 1) living in WA, 2) loads of my mates and other people I grew up with getting jobs in the mining sector quite easily and getting paid really well, and 3) processing credit applications for miners who do fly-in, fly-out work and, assessing their payslips for this on a regular basis, I can guarantee you that they do get paid exceptionally well, and that a lot of these people earning $100k+ per annum are, as I said, 18-year-old bogans.

I agree it's a high risk job, of course - but that explains the high pay.

Like I say, they do get paid for a while. However it's high risk employment and also highly sought after; the mining sector is as likely to be the death of our economy as the salvation IMO.

[Gavin Luper]

Like I say, they do get paid for a while. However it's high risk employment and also highly sought after; the mining sector is as likely to be the death of our economy as the salvation IMO.

It is worrying that we don't seem to have a longer-term economic strategy, I agree!

[Leon-IH]

It is worrying that we don't seem to have a longer-term economic strategy, I agree!

Personally my take would be to tax the mining industry more heavily (resource tax should be 50% instead of 30% imo, however it should be used to form a sovereign wealth fund like what Norway has), discourage population growth, and cease importing workers for mines immediately.

However I have longstanding issues with the belief that economic growth (read: inflation) is somehow a positive force.