KWAME

Over the past decade, the US mining industry has seen a significant decline in its talent pipeline. In particular, declining enrollments in mining schools signals waning interest in the industry. That is completely out of line with the Biden administration’s industrial policy to boost the US’ domestic supply chain of critical and strategic minerals like lithium. What do we do about that?

There has been a concerted effort to boost the presence of the Black community in the technology industry. While those efforts have yielded some benefit, it seems our definition of “technology” has been a bit narrow with a heavy focus on digital technology.

The reality is that technology is a broad term, defined as “the practical application of knowledge in a specific area.” This encompasses innovations across all sorts of industries, mining included. I believe there is real opportunity to flip that.

The Levers of Change: Capital, Resources, and Talent

BloombergNEF’s recently launched research ranks the potential for countries to maximize their potential to build a strong lithium-ion battery supply chain based on three levers: capital, materials, and human resources.

On the capital front, the US lags behind Canada and China, investing 1.1% of its GDP across our battery supply chain, below the global average of 1.7%. This will likely look different in the coming years as more and more of US industrial policy attract capital. This is while we are in race to secure our access to the natural resources needed for the energy transition, much of which is outside of the United States. As a result, the US is on a quest to boost our collaborations with resource-rich nations, though our regulatory environment proves challenging in moving at speed.

Arguably the most crucial lever, however, is our human resources. Nothing moves without people — at least for now. The United States has the talent capable of driving innovations and capitalizing on the R&D the country produces. We just don’t have a large enough portion of the country’s talent choosing to work in the mining industry. The number of empty mining roles in 2023, were 50% more than a decade ago. In the manufacturing industry, they were 150% more. That’s wild.

Expanding the Demographics of the Mining Industry

The data I cited at the beginning of this piece on the challenge our mining schools have attracting students is quite concerning. It begs the question, what needs to be in place to attract the workforce necessary for this transition. One area that has my eye is the mining industry media landscape. Companies like Aspermont are likely enjoying very nice businesses with leading brands like Mining Journal and Mining Magazine and the event businesses built around them. That said, I could see a real opportunity to leverage some of those profits to build new brands targeting younger readers who may not be thinking anything about the new electric haul trucks BHP and Rio Tinto are testing, but are the top biker boys in DC, Baltimore, Philadelphia, or elsewhere.

I spent a bit good bit of time looking through Bureau of Labor Statistics data to see if I could lay eyes on a breakdown of the demographics of the mining industry, but was unsuccesful. If the coal mining industry serves as an OK proxy, the presence of the Black community in the industry is paltry. Much like there has been a concerted push to get Black folks into the digital technology industry, I believe there’s opportunity to do similarly further down the “technology stack.”