Retirement rate rising in mining industry.

• Author: ROSS, IAN

How quickly can the fortunes in the mining industry shift?

Just a year-and-half ago, the Sudbury-based nickel giant Inco Ltd. was offering cash incentives for employees to retire early.

Now with a surge in exploration for platinum-group metals (PGM), combined with a jump in the company's retirement rate, the pendulum has swung the other way as hundreds of positions for surface operators, geologists, technical engineers, tradespeople, accountants and other administrative positions must be filled over the next few years.

"That's how quickly the situation has changed," says Berno Wenzl, Inco's superintendent of organization development who oversees recruiting and workforce planning.

"In the fall of 1999, if you were eligible to retire after 30 years, you'd get a $25,000 cash incentive to retire early."

About 300 to 400 people took advantage of the incentive.

The company's workforce demographics indicate that of Inco's 4,600 total employees in Ontario (4,400 in Sudbury and 200 in Port Colborne), roughly one-third of the workforce, about 1,500 employees, are eligible to retire over the next three years.

Hiring freezes through the 1980s and 1990s have left the company in the lunch with fewer employees in the 10 to 20 year mid-career range who are ready to step into senior and supervisory roles. The average age of an Inco employee is 46 years of age.

To deal with this shortfall the company has embarked on a process which includes reshuffling workers into new jobs, promoting through the ranks and bringing in entry-level people as needed, including hiring junior mining engineers right out of school.

To replenish their ranks, Inco hired or recalled about 300 people last year, and intends to hire 500 this year and about the same number next-year.

"We're struggling to fill roles," says Wenzl. "We're running out of qualified candidates, people who have mining experience or the common core in basic training, and we're having to go further afield in Northern Ontario and even as far as B.C."

Millwrights, heavy-equipment mechanics and electricians are in the greatest demand since these positions exist in other industrial sectors.

Wenzl says there is no shortage of interested applicants available since most Sudburians recognize employment in the mining industry as a well-paying job. But finding those with the right qualifications is an ongoing concern.

"It's a tight market that will only get tighter as more and more people retire," says Wenzl.

To keep a...