On July 19th, 2023, The National Newspaper reported that Barrick Gold Corporation and the Papua New Guinea Government expect the Porgera Gold Mine to reopen in September, according to the Chief Executive Officer of Barrick, Mark Bristow (Mine reopening date set – The National).

It’s the 2nd largest mine in Papua New Guinea to the Ok Tedi Mine and can harvest 500,000 ounces of gold annually. In addition, the mine employed a workforce of over to 3,500, before it was shut down by the PNG Government 2020 (https://www.pngbusinessnews.com/articles/2022/3/marape-urges-porgera-mine-operator-to-reinstate-over-3500-former-employees).

I know for a fact that a huge number of this workforce have been employed elsewhere in other mining organizations and relevant industries, as I’ve had a hand in recruiting this displaced workforce from Porgera into other mines and industries. But when the mine reopens in September 2023, it will create a chain of events that will affect all industries in Papua New Guinea, particularly it’s labour workforce in 3 major ways which I will discuss further below:

1. It will attract talent from around the country and region to join Porgera

The reopening of the Porgera Gold Mine will create a “vacuum” effect in the PNG jobs market where it will suck in all relevant talent required for the mine’s operations to continue well relating to key departments there such as geological exploration, engineering, metallurgy, environmental management, support services and other related fields. It has the capacity to suck in talent from around the region as well from Australia, New Zealand and Southeast Asia, even former Porgera employees who are now employed elsewhere, which won’t be surprising as ex PJV employees will not take too much time and money to be work ready.

2. Industries will lose manpower to “New Porgera”, creating large number of vacancies

A massive number of vacancies will be greater caused by the vacume effect of Porgera Mine’s reopening in businesses and industries that share the same talent pools as Porgera Mine requires. The onus will be on those organizations whether they seek similar talent to replace those heading to Porgera or employ recent graduates or apprentices and upskill them on the job, promote those in lower positions up to high level ones left vacant, etc., thus causing massive manpower movements internally in various organizations and externally in other industries in the PNG workforce that are indirectly or directly related to the manpower requirements of Porgera.

3. Potentially delays in production in competing mines and related industries

There will definitely be delays in production or production levels not being at what levels they’re accustomed to being at due to well experienced workforce going off to Porgera who can manage the various machinery and possess the knowledge and experience to manage vital processes at their respective organizations. They will have to manage production levels well enough until competent replacements are found. Human Resource and Recruitment Departments will be in overdrive, trying their best to close those vacancies to get competent personnel onboard to get production going at the usual levels again and profits up like before.

Final thoughts and recommendations

Regardless of what industry your organization is in, it will be affected one way or another once Porgera restarts. They will have to start planning to manage the effects of the mine reopening in September 16th 2023.

And for organizations that have Ex-Porgera employees in their ranks, don’t be surprised if they are leaving an organization to return back there because I can guarantee that a policy of Porgera will be to give 1st priority to Ex-Porgera employees or seek out Ex-Porgera employees and bring back to the mine, as they’ll already have the knowledge and experience to carry on from where they left off, less cost in upskilling and increase with production /profit levels. Thus, that will be something all organization must take into account and prepare for.

But apart from the above mentioned, organizations can see it as a positive and use it to their advantage. Some measures that can be taken to mitigate the effects of the Mining restart would be the following listed below:

1. Promote existing permanent staff to high level roles left vacant by employees. This will be a great way to rewarding the hardworking, committed staff of the organization. This will get those staff motivated to give their best every day in the workplace and great Public Relations for the firm.
2. Make permanent all short-term employees to fill vacancies in left vacant. I know there are a lot of organizations that have contract employees who are on on-call basis or just working on short term projects until the project ends. They are a readily available supply of talent that know the internal operations of the organization and will also have no problem becoming permanent employees there.
3. Make permanent those who are in the organization from your Graduate Development Program once they’ve completed the program. They’ll know already the company’s expectations and culture, there won’t be any issues with slotting in permanently into the vacancies.

All in all, the reopening of the mine will cause various effects, though a plus for our country’s economy, it sure will affect PNG’s talent stocks. Organizations will need to adapt quickly and plan ahead or they’ll be hit hard by it’s effects.

If you like what you read or have a difference in opinion, leave a comment below. We’d love to hear from you. Until then, wok seif. #ThePNGRecruiter #WokEmWok

***NOTE*** ALL IMAGES USED WERE TAKEN FROM THE PORGERA JOINT VENTURE WEBSITE. IMAGE GALLERY (PorgeraJV – Company page – Porgera Gold Mine Papua New Guinea)