National Resources Sector Employment Taskforce Technical Paper

These estimates do not account for any increase in employment in Western Australia’s offshore
LNG industry. Employment growth offshore is expected to be low, so the Taskforce has not
attempted to make any projections. The number of new jobs will depend on the development
concepts that are approved.
Companies in the gas sector predicted a growth in demand for occupations across the entire
scope of operations and maintenance, as the sector rapidly expands in new fields, such as CSG.
A LNG train typically takes three years to build, so the operational workforce is expected to
grow significantly from 2013 to 2015.
3.7 Replacement demand
Over time, people leave their current jobs for jobs in the same industry (turnover) or they leave
the industry for another industry or to retire (replacement demand). There is limited data
available concerning these movements.
Turnover
SkillsDMC (2010) has estimated turnover rates for a range of sectors including drilling (29 per
cent), quarrying (17 per cent), and mining (13.3 per cent).
Twenty of the 34 resources companies that responded to the National Resources Sector
Employment Taskforce Survey answered questions about their company’s annual labour
turnover rate (the Taskforce survey is included in Appendix VI):
• In 2007, the rate ranged between 0 and 40 per cent, with most companies reporting
rates between 5 and 20 per cent.
• In 2008, the rate ranged between 1 and 85 per cent, with most companies reporting
rates between 20 and 30 per cent.
• In 2009, the rate ranged between 0 and 90 per cent, with most companies reporting
rates between 5 and 20 per cent. Compared to 2007 and 2008, more companies
reported rates of 40 per cent or higher—five companies experienced turnover rates of
between 40 per cent and 90 per cent.
Industry turnover rates vary substantially, including across types of workers. For example, a
large resources company advised the Taskforce that turnover for its FIFO workers (up to 30 per
cent per year) is double that of other employees.
Potential job vacancies
The concept of Gross Replacement is a measure of the amount of recruitment needed to
effectively replace people leaving an occupation. A potential job vacancy can be created in
three ways:
• by a person leaving the job to work in another job in the same occupation
(‘occupational churn’, which makes no net change to occupational employment
numbers)
• by a person leaving both the job and the occupation to work in another occupation,
become unemployed or exit the labour force (e.g. caring duties, retirement, death,
emigration etc.)
• by the employer seeking to fill a new position.
24 | National Resources Sector Employment Taskforce: Technical Paper