Mine operators worldwide – and in South Africa – are cutting costs and spending as a fall-out in commodity prices dampens profits.
One of the negative spin-offs of this scenario is that mines in South Africa are also cutting back on artisan training, at a time when there is a significant shortage of trained artisans in the country.
This is according to Sean Jones, co-founder and director of private artisan training company, Artisan Training Institute (ATI).
Prices of minerals and metals dropped to the lowest level since August 2002 on January 29, according to the Bloomberg Commodity Index. The mining industry in South Africa lost 14 000 jobs in the fourth quarter of 2014, the statistics agency says last month.
“These are gloomy statistics indeed and artisan training is taking a knock downstream,” says Jones.
Despite the weakening of the Rand, which many people believe should have benefited the mining industry, cost cutting and retrenchments look set to continue.
“Making matters worse, we are just not competitive enough as a country. Australia, for instance is exporting iron ore to China – at a price 30% lower than SA,” says Jones.
But despite a general cutback in artisan training, ATI has increased its intake for fresh apprentices this year. But this is not coming from the mining sector, says Jones.
“We have seen a marked increase in training from the transport sector, as well as from Eskom – who is focusing on up skilling employees. Due to these spikes, our revenue stream has not been affected, despite the fact that most mines have cut back drastically on artisan training.”
Jones says there is little chance that the retrenchments in the mining industry will abate any time soon. Additionally, mines have increased their levels of mechanisation due to rolling strikes. Due to this, many jobs lost due to retrenchments are unlikely to be replaced as mines look at ways to protect their bottomline results.
While there is a general shortage of artisans, there is a particular shortage of riggers, boilermakers and diesel mechanics.
While figures vary from expert to expert, it is believed there is a shortage of at least 50 000 artisans.
