Employment from Mining

Tension exists surrounding the question of whether extractive industry projects lead to local job creation. The employment potential of extractive industries is often touted both by governments and by companies in support of large-scale investments in natural resources. On the other hand, many have noted that the actual number of local jobs created by these investments rarely meets the numbers promised, and those that are created are often low-skill jobs. In order to assess the potential employment impacts from extractive industries, as well as to help tailor policies to augment this impact, a more critical outlook at the factors that shape these employment impacts is needed. To address this problem, the VCC is looking at factors determining how many jobs a mine creates, what type of labor, its duration, whether the jobs result in transferable skills, what happens to mine employees after a mine closes, and gender issues in mining employment, among others.