New Tech, New Deal: Technology Impacts Review

Key Messages

•  A suite of new technologies in the mining sector is dramatically changing the way mining is done.
• While this will have many positive impacts, it will also mean far fewer locals employed in mining operations, and job descriptions that have a much heavier emphasis on complex skills.
• The speed of change is such that policy-makers need to think today about how to handle the emerging challenges.

This review surveys the landscape of new technologies sweeping through the mining sector that are disrupting traditional mining practice. It catalogues those technologies and assesses their likely impacts, both positive and negative. It then focuses on automation and other technologies that will reduce the overall labour force replacing low-skilled jobs with those that demand more technical skills. It concludes with some thoughts about what this might mean for the relationship between mining companies and their host communities and host countries, while offering preliminary observations about the policy options available to governments, mining companies and local communities to address the challenges ahead.