PERTH (miningweekly.com) – Despite a dip in Australia’s mining employment numbers, the demand for skilled workers remained strong, the Australian Mines and Metals Association (AMMA) said on Friday.

“Due to softening commodity prices and some project deferrals the 2% decrease in total mining employment, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) data, came as little surprise to the resource industry,” said AMMA’s career website director Kyla Jones.

“It is clear that after a decade of being the fastest-growing source of employment in Australia, averaging 25% annual growth, greater focus on regulatory reform to increase Australia’s productivity and competitiveness is required to sustain these long-term opportunities.”

However, Jones noted that with 1 500 job vacancies on AMMA miningoilandgasjobs.com alone, the association continued to experience strong recruitment activities by most sectors of the resource industry, particularly for skilled and technical positions.

“Our site shows the highest demand remains for engineers, maintenance workers, designers and drafters, machinery operators and skilled trade workers.

“It’s also encouraging to see the Northern Territory, New South Wales and Victorian resource sectors created an extra 4 500 jobs combined during this quarter.”

The latest ABS labour force figures indicated that at the end of May, 261 100 Australians were employed as a result of investment in the country’s mining, oil and gas projects.

Some A$268-billion worth of resource projects remained under construction in Australia, while 287 additional projects are still being considered, potentially worth A$354-billion to the nation.

“As more of these projects reach final investment decision and come on line over coming months and years, AMMA miningoilandgasjobs.com expects skills demand and recruitment activity within our industry to remain very strong,” Jones said.

“If this pipeline of projects can be secured for our shores through creating an environment more conducive to investment, government estimates tell us that the construction demands alone could create around 135 000 new jobs by 2018.”

She noted that much of this future demand would be driven by the emerging liquefied natural gas sector, with key skilled tradespeople such as boilermakers and welders already in short supply and among the most sought after occupations on the AMMA’s website.