PERTH (miningweekly.com) – The Western Australian government is working to address skills shortages in the resources sector, Mines, Petroleum and Energy Minister Bill Johnston said.

Speaking at the Global Iron Ore and Steel Forecast conference, in Perth, Johnston said that the state government had expanded the occupations covered under the skilled migration occupations.

“It is important to understand that Western Australia does not get significant migration from the East Coast. We rely on international immigration to support our labor availability and the closed international border has seen a great struggle for immigration into Western Australia over the last two years of the pandemic.”

Johnston said that the state government was pleased to see that a large number of previous East Coast residents had moved to Western Australia, following initiatives from majors BHP and Rio to sustain staff during lock-down periods, however, Johnston noted that international immigration was required to support the growing demand for labour in Western Australia.

“We continue to work as a government, we continue to work closely with the iron-ore industry to build a sustainable local workforce that can meet our medium- and long-term skills demands. These initiatives include expanding the state nominated migration programmes, attracting temporary visa holders already in Australia, and we've added an additional 134 occupations to the Western Australia Skilled Migration Occupations.

“We also agreed to develop a campaign to attract interstate and New Zealand workers and create a new partnership to provide Aboriginal jobseekers with hiring assistance to address specific barriers to employment,” Johnston said.

Meanwhile, the Minister noted that the state government was also continuing with its investigation into a green steel industry in the state, with mapping of green steel pathways expected in May.

“We understand the risks that there are for the direct shipping ore industry by the change to green steel globally and we want to make sure that we are positioning the industry to take advantage of those traders and certainly ameliorate any challenges and risks, so Western Australia continues to be in a strong position to continue to build on the opportunities to grow and diversify our iron-ore sector while maintaining a competitive advantage.”