Research Outputs (Mining Engineering)

Permanent URI for this collection

https://wiredspace.wits.ac.za/handle/10539/21345
For information on accessing School of Mining Engineering Research Articles content please contact : Salome Potgieter by email : salome.potgieter@wits.ac.za or Tel : 011 717 1961

Browse

Browsing Research Outputs (Mining Engineering) by Author "Cruise, J.A."

Now showing 1 - 1 of 1
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    A perspective on the supply and utilization of mining graduates in the South African context.
    (The Southern African Institute of Mining and Metallurgy., 2013-03) Musingwini, C.; Cruise, J.A.; Phillips, H.R.
    The South African mining industry continues to be a major source of employment at a time when at least 25 per cent of the working age population is unemployed. At the same time the industry faces a skills shortage in many of the disciplines necessary for its future health. The University of the Witwatersrand, University of Pretoria, University of Johannesburg, and University of South Africa have historically produced mining graduates for the South African mining industry with any shortfall being met by the recruitment of overseas graduates. More recently, the global shortage of engineers and other mining industry professionals has seen a reversal of this trend and a very significant emigration of well-educated and highly skilled personnel. The traditional career path for mining graduates is in production and mine management. However, there is the parallel (and possibly more pressing) need for specialized skills in such fields as ventilation, rock engineering, mine planning, mineral resource evaluation, and mineral asset valuation. Chronic shortages in these essential areas continue to hamper the development of the industry and may well frustrate its ambitions to be safe, healthy, and profitable into the future. The permeability of skills across sectorial boundaries within the mining industry requires that skills shortages in the platinum sector are not looked at in isolation, but within the context of the entire industry. This paper reviews the efforts being made by the universities, at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels, to meet the needs of the South African mining industry in terms of the required numbers and the range of specialized skills.