In 2104, the SME Government and Public Affairs Committee published a technical paper:
Workforce Trends in the US Mining Industry. This paper addresses the shortage of skilled mine labor.
Workforce availability has become a significant problem for the domestic mining industry. Without an adequate workforce, the basic building blocks of the economy - energy and minerals - cannot be domestically produced. The new global emerging middle class will continue to create competition for mineral resources that will likely increase demand well into the future. However, it is unlikely that there will be sufficient skilled mine labor to satisfy this demand over the next 20 years.
Energy Information Administration (EIA) projections have the mining industry growing by about 50,000 workers by 2019, however the industry will need 78,000 additional replacement workers due to retirement, for a total of 128,000 new positions by 2019. By 2029, more than half the current workforce will be retired and replaced (~221,000 workers) creating a skill and knowledge gap the industry may be challenged to accommodate. Finding and retaining skilled labor is likely to be a lasting problem for mining companies.
Read the full paper:
Workforce Trends in the US Mining Industry.
More technical papers are available at http://www.smenet.org/gpac