Mining Slowdown Jitters To Escalate as Available Jobs Fall

Jitters of a looming recession and escalating slowdown in mining could all the more be fueled as available jobs in Australia's mining industry has fallen, a first in three years.

Citing unidentified government data, Reuters News reported that over the three months to August, available jobs in the mining sector fell by 4,600. This follows a recorded increase in the three months to May of 25,500.

Although the industry's total employment, compared from a year ago, was still a positive at 44,600 jobs, it was however still its first registered quarterly drop since mid-2009.

Although the industry's workforce of 270,600 is just about 2 per cent of Australia's total number of employed at 11.5 million, mining jobs have been continuously and swiftly growing. Australia's mining industry has generated 133,000 jobs since its mining boom zoomed since 2007.

While Australia's jobless rate is still at a manageable 5.1 per cent, growth in annual employment, however, is only 0.5 percent.

And with miners BHP Billiton, Xstrata Plc and Fortescue Metals Group's all going to slash their manpower list, jitters would all the more become magnified that Australia's economic dominion may already be headed to a downhill.

Even the Australia's manufacturing sector had slashed 65,000 jobs over the three months to August.