Staff shifts north as gold shines bright; Timmins, Kirkland Lake see influx of people, jobs.

An age-old rivalry for skilled mining employees between the base metal behemoth of Sudbury and the gold camps of Timmins and Kirkland Lake has shifted, with countless Nickel City numbers packing up for points up for points further north.

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"Where we used to get maybe four resumes for a given job posting, we now get thousands," says Mark Tessier, vice-president of technical services for Kirkland Lake Gold, who is in the process of increasing its workforce of 230 staff to 360.

"For a hundred or so jobs, we got about 2,500 resumes. We have no trouble at all filling our workforce now, which certainly wasn't true six months ago, what with base metal camps like Sudbury having the premium on people."

The downturn in base metal prices and subsequent series of layoffs and cutbacks at the heart of Sudbury's mining camp has sparked the exodus of workers, reversing a long trend where the reverse was true.

While tough times in the mineral industry would previously translate to movement out into the Albertan oil fields, hardships in that sector have made it much less of an option.

This means even lower-level job postings in northern gold camps are seeking vast amounts of applications from people with incredibly strong levels of expertise and experience.

"There was definitely big competition for workers up until six months ago, and now it's really gone quiet, for obvious reasons," says Terry Zuk, general manager for Levert Personnel Resources. "For so long, Sudbury was able to retain so many people that Timmins firms would often struggle for the people they needed. That's no longer the case."

While Kirkland Lake Gold still struggles to find engineers with five to 10 years of experience, it now has a pick of "a lot of really good, talented, experience people" for its many projects.

This includes expanding work at the Macassa Mine to include the South Mine Complex. Prior to the sudden influx of available talent, this work was to be completed by contractors, a job now to be done by the growing numbers of company staff.

The Town of Kirkland Lake has so been swollen by ranks of former Sudburians, among others, that local accommodations have been nearly impossible to find as the once-slack housing market vanishes almost completely.

As such, the company has instituted a travel allowance for employees staying in outlying towns.

With its Timmins West project well underway for production early 2009, Lake Shore Gold is seeing a similar shift.

Between employees and contractors such as Dumas Contracting, there are 225 people currently on site as a ramp is developed and a shaft is sunk. That number is expected to rise between 300 and 400 employees by the end of the year as production increases and other work is done on the nearby Bell Creek and Vogel sites.

Regardless of the harsh economic realities, Timmins has remained a highly attractive area for potential staff, making the growth of Lake Shore Gold's workforce a smooth and simple transition, says company representative Mark Utting.

"Gold really is the shining light in more ways than one. Prices are high, and that stability helps to attract people."

The number of people interested in moving further north may actually increase in the coming months as younger people begin to realize that tough times mean making tough decisions, says Zuk. While older generations have seen such downturns before and know that food has to be put onto the table, people in their 20s and early 30s are refusing "surprising"amounts of job postings that might be less prestigious than their prior job. That is likely to change as times tighten and economic realities set in.

Still, optimism runs high that base metal prices will eventually return to profitable levels and mining activity will rise again in the Sudbury camp. When that happens, Tessier says, he hopes the foundation will have been laid for workers to remain in Kirkland Lake.

"We're hoping by then they'll have set down some roots and are looking to stay. We think things are really nice up here, and there are lots of opportunities."

www.klgold.com

www.lsgold.com

www.levert.ca

By NICK STEWART

Northern Ontario Business