Following a number of years of unprecedented economic growth, the mining industry was one of the casualties of the 2008/9 recession, both locally and globally. This has resulted in a slowing of the pace of mining companies' black economic-empowerment (BEE) and gender-equity initiatives, mining research carried out by executive search firm Landelahni Business Leaders in its third biannual Mining Survey, finds.

The survey shows that, while black representation in the mining industry at top management level more than doubled, from 12,5% in 2001, to 30,6% in 2006, the percentage dropped to 28,5% in 2008, remaining slightly ahead of the all-industry average of 24,2%.

"The single biggest shift occurred at nonexecutive director level, from 0,5% in 2001 to 30%, in 2006, with an increase to 36%, in 2008," says Landelahni CEO Sandra Burmeister.

"After a sizeable boost in 2005/6, employment equity at top management level, at an estimated 28,5%, and skilled technical level, at some 50,8%, showed a slight decline in 2008. In senior management, professional and skilled categories, mining lags behind the all-industry average," she notes.

The mining industry had made earlier strides in terms of gender equity, with women in top management increasing from 0,01% to 9,3% between 2001 and 2006, women in senior management increasing from 0,03% to 10,1%, and those in midmanagement and professional positions increasing from 5,4% to 18,3%.

However, gender equity remained fairly constant between 2006 and 2008 at top levels, senior levels and professional levels. Across all levels, mining continues to lag behind the all-industry average.

"These findings must be seen in context. Mining, by its nature, is a male-orientated industry with a large proportion of operational teams on remote sites. This influences the number of women in the sector. For similar reasons, there are still significantly fewer women in technical and engineering positions across all industries," says Burmeister.

She adds that it is discouraging to see a drop in black employees and women in core operational positions in the mining sector. The 2008 survey shows a decrease to an average of 50% of black and female employees in core operations, against almost 65% in 2006. In contrast, black employees and women in support roles show an increase from 35% to an average of 50%.

In Burmeister's view, employment equity is integral to ongoing transformation and most sectors, including mining, have tackled employment equity in some form or another.

However, she believes that the focus should be on training and development from graduate level, through to the middle levels and the professional levels, and, by virtue of numbers, equity concerns would automatically be addressed. "It's not about the importance of one aspect versus the other. Skills development and employment equity are both fundamental to corporate success," she says.

Meanwhile, Burmeister says that South Africa is the leading educator in mining. "In 2008, the country trained 304 mining engineers, which is a significant number compared with other mining countries, such as Australia, which only trained about 130 engineers, Canada trained only a 127 engineers and the US only trained about 35 engineers.

However, she adds that this results in South Africa being the greatest target for ‘skills-poaching', as other countries are able to pay more for the skills, leaving a local skills deficit.

Burmeister says that the country should also expect a 50% loss of skilled employees in the next 15 years, as a result of retirements. "This trend is not exclusive to South Africa, but is imminent in the other big mining countries such as Canada and Australia. There is an aging work force in our specialist mining and technical areas," she explains.

A number of engineers also never end up in the specialist and technical fields of mining, as they venture into other fields in industry, such as financial services, supply companies to the mining industry, consultation firms, or merely move into broader industries.

Further, Burmeister believes that, as a result of the past, where training did not have such a significant focus as it has today, the skills deficit has grown.

"Training was short-term, companies would look at what they needed and ‘top up' on their skills. Now, with the expected loss, companies should focus on long-term skills training, from the graduate phase to the highly proficient engineer phase. It is critical to keep the efforts for skills training going, such as increasing the number of bursaries," she says.

The 2010 Landelahni Mining Survey researched 14 of the 18 main participants and six of the ten junior mining companies in the gold-, coal-, diamond-, platinum- and uranium-mining sectors in South Africa, representing a sample of 253 132 permanent employees.

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