Mining business is victim of success

Labor is the biggest issue facing this industry, according to John Mansanti, site manager at Turquoise Ridge.

"The industry was at a point where you'd be stealing people from one another. You'd be pirating somebody from another property and they'd be doing the same," said Mansanti.

Fewer schools and fewer graduates caused the crunch. The number of programs offering degrees in mine engineering has dwindled by almost half in the past 15 years. Compounding that: an aging workforce.

The coal industry alone will need 50,000 miners — that's nearly 80 percent of the current workforce — in the next five years to replace retirees and expand production. That's making it a job-seeker's market, with wages in the mines growing twice as fast as the overall labor market.

At Barrick, new underground miners — many with only a high school diploma — can make $22 an hour, which is four times the minimum wage. They also get full benefits and three weeks vacation to start.

That's a very different labor market from when Tracy Miller graduated with her mine engineering degree in 1985.

"The graduates are waiting for offers, and they are actually negotiating," Miller says.

All this means that labor costs for the industry are up, on top of rising energy and equipment prices. To top this is the risk of investing in training workers and then losing them if a rival makes a better offer.

But Vlahos says he's here to stay.

When asked if he thinks he'll be on the job in 10 years, he gives a quick "I think so."

Twenty years?

"Hope so."

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