GMS: Making mining ‘cool’ to attract new talent

If you ask Rob McEwen, chairman and chief owner of McEwen Mining (TSX: MUX; NYSE: MUX), what needs to happen for the industry to attract young people and present a career in mining as ‘cool’, the answer is pretty simple. 

“We need the public to start doing the math,” McEwen said at the Northern Miner’s Q4 Global Mining Symposium this week. “We have to calculate how much metal is needed to build the electric vehicles and wind turbines and solar cells that are required to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and limit temperature increases to 1.5 degrees [Celsius].”

The industry has to “make that link for people because we’re not going to get there without a lot of metals.” 

McEwen was part of a panel entitled Making Mining Cool for the Next Generation and was joined by panellists Erin Bobicki, an associate professor of mineral processing at the University of Alberta’s Department of Chemical and Materials Engineering, and Siri Genik, principal and founder of Bridge, a consultancy that provides advice on Environmental, Social, and Governance and risk management strategies. 

Reflecting on the increasing adoption of electric vehicles and autonomous equipment in the mining industry, Bridges’ Genik pointed out that not only are these technologies making the industry safer and more sustainable, but they can be “operated remotely by people sitting in offices in Toronto or Vancouver or wherever … what other industry is as cool as that?”

The University of Alberta’s Bobicki views working in the industry as an opportunity to make a big difference in the world. “How do we extract critical metals more efficiently? How do we use less water and energy? How do we reduce our impact on the environment?” 

This opportunity to make a big difference “is only going to get larger as we move towards electrification and decarbonisation and so this is a fascinating time to be working in the industry,” she said. 

For McEwen, the allure has always been working in an industry that, as he puts it, “is shaping modern civilisation,” and is “what first attracted me to become involved in the investment side of the industry.”  

“Although there are a lot of young graduates jumping into the investment banking industry or cryptocurrencies, there are also a lot of them jumping into the mining industry too. And if you want to be involved in shaping the future, the mining industry is a great place to start.” 

According to Bobicki, the key to attracting a new and diverse range of talent into the industry is “to create a variety of opportunities for working with new technologies such as drones or robotics, and to innovate by offering exciting new opportunities for lawyers, investors, mechanical engineers, and artists.” 

In light of the Covid-19 pandemic, she says the mining industry “also needs to step up and offer remote or hybrid working environments, and make people aware that these opportunities exist so we can pull in the talent we need to drive the industry in the direction it needs to go.” 

Genik believes that to achieve this the industry “needs a kick in the butt to change its messaging” and cited a conversation she had a couple of years ago with a family member who is a mining engineering. 

“When asked what he did, he wouldn’t tell anybody he was in mining,” she says. “And when I brought it up, he said he wasn’t proud of it because ‘nobody likes us.’” 

The industry “doesn’t talk about all the good things we do and needs to zoom out to tell the whole world about these things.” 

Bobicki noted that as a founding director of Aurora Hydrogen, a start-up technology company looking to generate hydrogen gas from natural gas, “we got pushback from environmental NGOs because we’re still using fossil fuels.” 

“Coming to Rob’s point about doing the math, we need to start having these conversations, which may not always be pleasant, and get the message out there through respectful dialogue about how cool the industry is and the contribution we’re making to help decarbonise the planet.” 

Watch the full panel discussion here: