71% of Mining Leaders Say Skills Shortages Are Hitting Output

Seventy-one percent of mining leaders say talent shortages are already stopping them from hitting production targets, and 86% report that hiring has become materially harder than it was just two years ago. That is not a boom-time recruitment squeeze. It is a structural failure of the pipeline that feeds skilled operators and engineers into the sector.

The problem builds from several directions at once. The education pipeline that once supplied mining engineers has collapsed in key jurisdictions, public perception is steering young people away from the sector, and the existing workforce is retiring faster than replacements arrive.

For anyone holding exposure to mining operations, this belongs in the operational risk column, not the temporary-labour-market column. What follows maps the scale of the problem, the simulation technology gaining traction as a response, and the evidence for whether it actually works.

An industry running out of workers faster than it can train them

Start with the age of the people already doing the work. In the United States, the median age across mining, quarrying, and oil and gas extraction sits at 43.1 years, and nearly half of the industry’s skilled engineers are projected to reach retirement age within the next decade. The knowledge walking out the door is not being replaced at anything like the same rate.

Canada shows the same demographic squeeze from both ends. Between 2011 and 2022, the share of workers aged 55 and older climbed from 12% to 18%, while the proportion of workers under 25 fell from 11% to 5%. The workforce is getting older and thinner at the entry point simultaneously.

The education pipeline tells the most acute version of the story, and Australia is the clearest documented example.

• Australia: Mining engineering bachelor completions fell 98% between 2014 and 2023, with postgraduate completions down 76% over the same period. Only 152 mining engineers graduated in 2023, down from 333 in 2015. The country faces a projected shortfall of roughly 8,400 workers by 2026, needing around 24,400 against an available supply near 16,000.
• United States: Median miner age of 43.1 years, with close to 50% of skilled engineers due to reach retirement age within ten years.
• Canada: Workers aged 55 and older rose from 12% to 18% of the workforce, while under-25s halved from 11% to 5%, between 2011 and 2022.

Then there is the demand side, and this is where conventional recruitment runs into a wall. Seven out of ten young people say they would not consider a career in mining, and nearly three-quarters believe the industry does more harm than good. A sector cannot simply advertise its way past a perception problem of that magnitude.

86% of mining leaders report that recruiting and retaining the talent they need has become materially harder than it was two years ago.

Put the three pressures together, an ageing workforce, a shrunken education pipeline, and a candidate pool that actively avoids the sector, and the conclusion is unavoidable. Mining companies cannot recruit their way out of this at scale. For investors, that reads as a structural constraint on near-term production capacity, because labour risk is operational risk. Companies unable to staff equipment or fill statutory technical roles face direct production impacts, cost blowouts, and schedule delays that flow straight through to earnings. Industry estimates also suggest 48% of existing employees will need reskilling or upskilling within four years just to keep pace.

What simulator training actually offers, and how operators are deploying it

If companies cannot recruit fast enough, the next lever is training the people they do have faster and more safely. This is where simulation technology has moved from trial to operational deployment.

Immersive Technologies sits at the centre of this market. Its flagship PRO5 Advanced Equipment Simulator, launched at MINExpo 2021, is professional-grade hardware rather than consumer kit adapted for industry. It combines stereoscopic 3D, a one-piece curved display, photo-realistic graphics, and RealView head-tracking that adjusts the operator’s view as they move. Built for harsh mining environments, it carries a 10-plus-year asset life, 99.4% system availability, and a solid-state projector rated for up to 50,000 hours of light-source life to support continuous 24/7 operation.

The core value proposition is straightforward. Simulators let operators practise emergency and high-risk scenarios that cannot be safely replicated on live equipment, and they standardise how skill is measured across large workforces spread across dispersed sites.

The deployment evidence is what signals this is no longer a pilot-stage technology. Across Q2-Q3 2024, Immersive Technologies secured workforce training contracts for four major underground projects, and in November 2024 it began simulator training for the first major autonomous haulage system mine in the United States. The company’s market position is reinforced by OEM ties, including an exclusive technical licence extension with Hitachi and its acquisition by Komatsu. Its underground-focused IM360+ technology debuted at MINExpo 2024.

The geographic spread across four continents and the move into autonomous haulage training matter for investors. They suggest simulator adoption is becoming a durable operational trend, which makes the presence or absence of structured simulation programs a useful proxy for how ready a company is to onboard operators in a tight labour market.

The evidence for simulation training, where it works and where it falls short

The performance data from documented deployments is strong enough to take seriously. At Lundin Mining’s Caserones operation in Chile, operators achieved a 90% improvement in workforce risk profile, a 47% reduction in machine-damage events, and a 65% reduction in overall machine events. Aggregated Komatsu data across mining customers using Immersive simulators showed a 10.4% increase in truck tyre life, a 62.2% reduction in brake abuse, and a 6.9% reduction in fuel consumption.

Productivity gains appear across multiple operations too. Kinross’s Bald Mountain mine recorded a 1.4% productivity increase among simulator-trained operators, while Normet Academy reported an average 23% improvement in operator efficiency. Dragline operators in Immersive case studies achieved 4% faster cycle times, 10% faster swing times, and 5.7% higher bucket fill factors.

At Lundin Mining’s Caserones operation in Chile, simulator-trained operators achieved a 90% improvement in workforce risk profile.

The limitations are just as important, and they keep this in the risk-reduction category rather than the silver-bullet one.

• Fidelity gap: Simulators replicate only part of the operational experience. A study at LKAB’s Kiirunavaara mine found 86% of trainees rated the simulator very useful, but they agreed it could not substitute entirely for hands-on machine practice.
• Regulatory gap: No identified regulatory framework currently equates simulator training hours with certified on-equipment hours for operator certification.
• Validation gap: Independent academic review remains thin compared with vendor case studies, with reviewers noting a shortage of large-sample, rigorously designed studies comparing simulation against traditional methods.

The read for investors is balanced. The documented gains at named operations are material enough to reward, but the absence of independent large-sample validation and regulatory equivalence means simulation training should be treated as a tool that reduces operational risk, not one that closes the headcount gap.

What this means for mining investors watching operational continuity risk

The workforce crisis is not a passing news item. It is a persistent operational risk factor that belongs in any framework for assessing mining company quality, because the demographic wave accelerates through the late 2020s. Canada alone faces a projected 2.3% average annual labour-force exit rate from 2024 to 2034.

The skills gap is also throttling the technology transition companies are counting on. Some 73% of mining companies cite the local skills gap as the primary barrier to adopting new technologies, and 47% of leaders name skills shortages as their top challenge for implementing them.

When assessing how a company is responding, three signals are worth watching.

1. Structured simulation-based onboarding programs, ideally OEM-partnered, that shorten operator ramp-up and standardise skill measurement across sites.
2. Reskilling investment aimed at the 48% of existing employees estimated to need upskilling within four years.
3. Parallel responses to the demographic and perception problems, including community engagement, workforce diversity programs, and education pipeline investment, since technology alone does not fix a candidate pool that avoids the sector.

The companies moving earliest on structured training and reskilling infrastructure are the ones best positioned to hold production continuity steady as the crunch deepens. For investors, workforce development investment functions as a leading indicator of a company’s capacity to execute on its production targets.

This article is for informational purposes only and should not be considered financial advice. Investors should conduct their own research and consult with financial professionals before making investment decisions. Financial projections are subject to market conditions and various risk factors.

A tool that helps, in a crisis that will not resolve quickly

The tension at the heart of this story is simple to state. Simulation training demonstrably improves safety and productivity outcomes at the operator level, with documented gains at named operations across several continents. Yet the talent pipeline failure driving the shortage is structural, rooted in demographics and public perception, and it will demand industry-wide, multi-year responses that reach well beyond any single technology.

That leaves investors with a clearer lens rather than a resolved question. Simulation is best understood as a meaningful risk-mitigation measure, not a cure, and anyone treating it as the latter is likely to be disappointed. The practical takeaway is to watch which companies treat workforce development as a strategic priority: training infrastructure investment, genuine reskilling commitments, and whether the whole effort reads as strategy rather than a compliance line item.