Where Are The Extractive Industry Skills?
September 23rd, 2009
Environmentalists concerned by a rush to extraction may take heart, however, from the skills shortage which would almost immediately kick in if a significant increase in geological prospecting and mine development happens. It is already an issue in Australia, where up to $A70bn needs to be spent in the next 10 years on electricity and gas networks alone, let alone developing the very large petro-chemical projects coming on stream across the Ditch.
Keith Orchison, a blogger for the Australian BusinessSpectator news service, says the clear evidence of a skills shortage to make all this happen “is not the stuff of political argy-bargy but a core need for a recovering economy. The impact on national GDP of these developments faltering for any reason would be considerable.” From NZ, that looks a lot like a recipe for attracting smart NZers to better pay and better weather, taking their engineering and scientific skills to Australia with them and creating similar skills bottlenecks in this country.
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