The mining sector needs to attract a younger, more technologically skilled workforce into new jobs sparked by the industry's shift into automation and artificial intelligence, speakers said at the Future of Mining Americas conference held Sept. 26 and 27 in Denver.

Mining companies struggle to attract young talent who view the sector as a bad social actor with a legacy of environmental damage. They need a new skilled workforce to deploy high-tech mining systems, including drones for surveying, artificial intelligence-based exploration activities, and automated vehicles and machinery. But to attract those workers, they must remind candidates that mining exists as a career option and spread awareness of the new mine worker who operates a keyboard and mouse instead of a pickaxe.

"When I tell people I work in the mining industry, I'd say probably 50% of people now say, 'Oh, blockchain,?' They go, 'Oh Bitcoin?'" said Joe Carr, mining innovation director at industrial digital solutions provider Axora. "There is a total lack of knowledge, in that sense."

The gap between the skills needed for Bitcoin mining or locating new lodes of ore is shrinking, as robotics, computer engineering and data analysis skills move to the fore of the industry.

"The value of automation isn't so much about taking a person out of the seat and not paying that person, it's the fact that the piece of equipment continues to run all the time; it doesn't have to take lunch breaks and take bathroom breaks, doesn't have to take shift changes, and it is constant," said Dean Gehring, chief technology officer at gold producer Newmont Corp. "Now, we need more people in our IT departments and other areas to support that technology."

Some companies have begun training their current workers into new jobs. Diversified miner Anglo American PLC runs a digital literacy program aimed at increasing employees' skills internally.

"We really need to invest in making sure that the organization is digitally capable of rising to the challenges that we are presenting today," Arun Narayanan, chief data officer for the company, said at the conference.

While the big diversified players are starting to hire more data scientists, many smaller and midtier mining companies are not yet utilizing some of the advanced technology and jobs that come with it.

"We kind of have this two-lane highway where we've got companies that hire tech people in these amazing projects," Carr said. "Then you've got other sites, and they're like, 'Yeah, we still need to pay rent. I have no idea what any of this is about.'"

Attracting new workers into the industry is challenging. Stephen Enders, head of the department of mining engineering at the Colorado School of Mines, said students and their parents tend to associate the mining industry with environmental damage and social issues. The sector also may struggle to attract employees due to lifestyle choices related to mining, including remote work away from large population centers. However, technology is changing where and how mining professionals do their job. Enders said his colleagues were dissuading their children from going into mining only a few years ago, and now he wishes he was a young person entering the field.

"Trying to change the world's view of mining is too big," Enders said at the conference. "I think what we can do is reach out as individuals. If everyone in this room recruited somebody to study mining, engineering or related fields that feed into mining, we'd solve for a lot of our professional talent."

U.S. mining schools and others worldwide are struggling to attract the number of students required to meet a growing need for mining professionals, Enders said.

"We find out that most of the students don't know what mining engineering is," Enders said. "Mining is hiding in plain sight. Frankly, no one sees it, and yet it's everywhere."

The industry pays relatively well. The median annual pay for mining and geological engineers in the U.S. was $97,090 as of May 2021, according to the U.S. Bureau of Statistics. The sector could take a recruitment approach similar to the military, Axora's Carr said, advertising the opportunity to see places around the world and solve technical challenges.

Fortunately, the industry has some time before technology completely takes over many industry jobs.

"That's why none of us are screaming and running around, 'But oh my god, the robots are going to take our jobs,'" said George Hemingway, managing partner of consultant Stratalis Group. "Soon enough, it will be a reality that labor will transform, and we will have to be ready and have the conditions in order to transform those times."

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