A $1.2-million hard-rock miner training program, designed to train up to 220 miners in Northern Ontario in the coming year, doesn’t do enough to address the miner shortage in Timmins, says the general manager of Placer Dome’s (TSE) Dome gold mine.
Robert Perry is concerned that only $450,000 of that $1.2 million will be used to alleviate the acute miner shortage in Timmins. “We are not at the moment hiring any new miners because of the problems we are experiencin g with our No 8 shaft,” said Perry. “But as soon as the No 8 shaft is operational again, of course, we will be short of miners.”
Perry said Dome’s school stopes — where underground miners are trained — are all located in the new No 8 shaft. The school stopes have the capability of training up to 24 miners per year.
It takes a trainee a full 12 weeks before he has even the basics of underground mining knowledge, said Perry. But it takes a lot longer than that before he can be called an experienced underground miner.
“We will be getting some of the $450,000 that’s coming to Timmins,” he said, “but all that means is that the government will be paying about $3 a man per hour for training, when our training costs are at least four times that amount.”
The north is currently faced with a severe shortage of trained miners. There is still a demand for from 800 to 1,000 underground miners.
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