PERTH (miningweekly.com) – Both skilled and unskilled migration into Australia would play a part in breaching the massive skills gap facing Australia, Resources Minister Madeleine King said on Thursday.

Speaking on the sidelines of the International Mining and Resources Conference (IMARC) in Sydney, King noted that there was a definite need for migration to help breach the gap.

“There are skills and worker gaps in every industry, whether it’s mining and the indirect services that support mining. Skilled migration, even unskilled migration, will be part of that. But the important thing is that it is managed well and that migrants have a path to citizenship because that’s the right thing to do,” King said.

During her presentation at IMARC, King noted that the resources sector currently employs around 280 000 people across Australia making up nearly 2% of total employment, and was the second-largest employer in Western Australia, behind the public sector.

“While what is under the ground and off of our extensive shores is a product of millenia of geological activity, it takes people and their ingenuity and determination and commitment to create an industry that has become the backbone of Australia’s economy.

“And the resources sector will continue to need more and more people driven to ensure its continuing contribution to this nation,” King said.

The federal government earlier this year held a Jobs and Skills summit, at the end of which it agreed to 36 immediate initiatives to counteract the skills shortage, including modernising Australia’s workplace relation laws, amending the Fair Work Act, improving access to jobs for women and First Nations people, increasing the permanent migration programme ceiling to 195 000 in 2022/23 to ease critical workforce shortages, and extending visas and relacing work restrictions for international students.