'Flood of activity' still coming
MORE than 13,000 machine operators, 6000 graduates and more than 7000 tradies will be needed by 2015 to keep Queensland's mining industry ticking over.
Skills researcher Kinetic Group's boss Derek Hunter concedes these are "uncertain times", but said a flood of activity was still headed our way.
"If you stop looking at the headlines and look at what the activity in the industry is right now, it's as high if not higher than it has ever been," Mr Hunter said.
"We have got significant new growth in productivity from 2013 onwards."
As of April, there were 20 mining and gas projects in Queensland alone, amounting to more than $64 billion in investment.
That includes BHP Billiton's Caval Ridge and Daunia mines already under construction which will deliver a total of 2450 jobs in construction and during operations
"These are not pie in the sky figures - the companies already invested are unlikely to stop them going through to production unless there was the most amazing crash."
He noted that even the global financial crisis, though it created a few "blips" for the industry, had only mild long-term effects.
Mr Hunter said the danger was this boom to bust mentality, if something stopped booming, then surely it had bust.
"We have to change people's heads about that - companies have shareholders to satisfy so action must be taken as soon as there is difficulty.
"Certainly (BHP Billiton Mitsubishi Alliance) is laying people off, they have closed a couple of mines in the past few months.
"But they have absorbed most of them back into the organisation."
