How To Find Mining Jobs In Australia
"Mining jobs in Australia have always been
sought after because they pay very well."
Mining jobs in Australia have always been sought after because they pay very well.
However, never has it been as easy to get a foot in the door as it is now. The mining boom in Western Australia means there are thousands of jobs available.
Just jump online and do a search and you will find dozens of big recruitment agencies offering to find you a mining job.
In the Western Australian mining industry there are more recruiters competing for workers than there are workers competing for jobs...
(Update: with the global slow down of the economy, mining around Australia is slowing down, too. But there are still good jobs to be had!)
When looking for Australian mining jobs you need to be realistic: really well paid employment in Australian mining is available only for skilled and experienced people, and unless you have a relevant trade or qualification AND some industrial experience it's not that easy to get those mining jobs. (Though it's certainly possible.)
Still, there are mining jobs in Australia for people without a relevant background.
Most mining companies use labour hire providers and special recruitment agencies to fill temporary positions (and also to "try out" applicants for permanent positions).
Even if you have no experience at all you can often get work as a fire watcher or confined space watcher on scheduled maintenance shut downs, or you may be able to talk your way into a few days work as a trades assistant.
Some Australian mine sites require that you have certain tickets or qualifications (most common requirements are MARCSTA and MWHS-Mine Worker Health Surveillance), but there are also many that don't require anything above their own site specific safety induction.
What you need almost everywhere is a police clearance, and you need to pass alcohol and drug screening.
I work for a labour hire providers myself, on a casual basis, at Argyle Diamond Mine in the Kimberley. (Casual not because of visa restrictions but because I don't really need a job, I just want to keep a foot in the door...).
On shut downs we often had travellers come in for a few days to give a hand and to do the fire watching/confined space observing. Some are Australians on a one or two year around-the-continent trip, others come from the UK, Germany, anywhere...
And they tell me they finance their travels with mining jobs. They find out the shut down dates for the mines, find out who the recruiters/labour hire agencies are, and give them a call.
For overseas travellers such a mining job in Australia is a great experience. Hey, other tourists pay for a tour across that diamond mine.
You get paid very well to watch people work (because that's all fire watchers or confined space observers do...), on top of good wages you usually also get paid for your trip to the mine (a lot of them are well out of the way in the middle of nowhere, they'll fly or drive you there), and all meals and accommodation are provided for the duration of the job.
Do you have any tips or experiences to share?
Tell your story or help others by answering a question here:
Australia Travel and Work - Finding Work in Australia.
How To Find Mining Jobs In Australia
(If you are looking for a career in mining best start here to get an idea about the mining industry. The information below is more for travellers looking for casual work.)
As I mentioned above, there is a lot of competition among the recruitment agencies, but I don't find those big established agencies all that useful when it comes to finding the short term casual jobs.
Get a newspaper and look through the classified job listings (e.g. in The West Australian), that turns up better ads. What you are looking for are not the mining companies or big recruiters, but the local labour hire contractors.
(Sorry, I had several really helpful links with the above few paragraphs, but the WA government has removed all those pages and not replaced them with anything useful. What they do offer now instead is this little free booklet (PDF) about employment opportunities, and that lists some resources that you can use in your search.)
As always, talking to the locals is the best way to find out what's going on where. All the way from Darwin in the Northern Territory, across the Kimberley and Pilbara, the Gascoyne and the Goldfields and then down to Perth you have mines, oil and gas fields, offering jobs in mining, process, maintenance and also in exploration and construction.
Some days it feels like everybody here is working for some mining company. So all you have to do is talk to the people around you, and they'll point you in the right direction soon enough.
If you came to Kununurra and asked me, I'd tell you to ring Kimberley Industries (08 9168 2176). They have an office in Perth as well (08 9592 6787). But they are just one of many options. Find out the dates for shut downs, find those agencies, and you should find a mining job in Australia.
Work and travel Australia - other work
Return from Mining Jobs In Australia to Outback Australia Travel Guide home page
