Migrant Workers Benefit Most from Australia’s Mining Boom

While the mining boom has generally benefited Australia's economy in general, certain groups reaped more than others did. One of the groups that thrived on the boom more than others is that of immigrant workers.

In Western Australia (WA), the key mining state, 52,000 immigrants were hired in the past 12 months while for the same period 36,400 locals lost their work, The Australian reports. Combining the employment trends in WA, Queensland and New South Wales (NSW), overseas-born workers got more than 50 per cent of the jobs created since the 2008 global financial crisis.

The disparity is particularly felt in WA where 64,500 jobs went to immigrants in the past three years versus the loss of 6,000 jobs by people born in Australia.

At least in Queensland, locals got 33,700 of the new jobs while those born got 56,100 jobs. In NSW, half or 86,900 jobs were given to immigrant workers and the other half 86,400 to Australian-born. It is only in Victoria where the bulk of the new jobs or 149,400 went to locals and only 33,100 to immigrants.

However, an analysis of figures showed that the foreign workers were not taking the jobs from locals by agreeing to accept the lower-paying positions since 27 per cent of the recent new arrivals belong to the professionals occupation group.

About 14 per cent were from the technicians and trades workers occupation group and 13 percent were clerical and administrative workers.

Latest surveys showed that the mining and construction sectors in Australia and New Zealand would still continue to enjoy a boom despite the threat of another round of global crisis based on plans by 32 per cent of employers in those two sectors to hire more workers in 2012.

The survey said that technical managers, mining engineers, maintenance superintendents, environment engineers, study managers in ports and rail operations, electrical tradesmen and electrical engineers would continue to be in high demand this year.

Last year, mining executives estimated the manpower shortage in the mining sector would be at about 150,000 positions.

With $114 billion infrastructure projects across Australia in the pipeline - particularly port and rail expansion projects - the construction sector is expected to also experience a surge in demand for skilled workers. However, after the projects are finished, the expanded infrastructure facilities will again lead to more hiring, particularly among mining firms, for skilled overseas-born and local workers.