What You Should Know About Mining Jobs

The mining industry is very lucrative and offers an alternate career path that can be very rewarding financially. However, like any skilled job, there is some basic training to acquire before one can qualify as a miner. The days of a young apprentice assisting experienced miners and learning on the job are long gone. A career in mining requires educational skills that encompass a variety of aspects to deal with the complexities of modern day mining of natural resources. Obtaining this sort of training and skill is the surest way of enabling one to get a mining job that commands a six figure income. 

While training and skills is the core essential for a mining job, factors such as working hours and conditions, safety issues and remuneration must be considered if one is interested in this line of work. Some of these factors are discussed below:

Mining is one of the industries that do not require one to study for years at a university. Yet some mining jobs can pay double or even triple what a four year college degree job will typically pay in this economy. One can actually spend a few thousand dollars to receive mining training and certifications in a matter of weeks, and be capable of getting a job that offers the potential of earning as much as $100,000 or more a year. 

Mining is a twenty four hour job that occurs throughout the week. It is a round the clock shift job that sometimes require miners to work as much as two weeks in a row before taking a few days off. A typical working shift of 12 hours a day is not uncommon in some mining fields. Also miners who work in very remote regions are sometimes required to stay in a mining camp for weeks, even when they are not on a working shift. 

Unless a miner’s job is basically located in an office whereby he is doing mostly paperwork, a lot of the mining engineers’ work involves field activities that sometimes include working in underground. Also it is wise to get plenty of information about mining jobs, before opting for a career in the industry because for example the jobs are usually located in remote areas and depending on the type of resource being mined; these areas can be subjected to different climates and weather conditions that might not be conducive for work. 

Also most miners who work underground have to put up with environmental elements such as humidity, heat and dirt, and even though a lot of underground mines now have electricity, there are still some that have no lights in the tunnels so the miners have to use the lights on their hats to guide them along the pathways. Other adverse conditions are space confinements that sometimes forces miners to crawl through spaces and even work on their hands and knees.

Due to some of the working environment that miners have to perform their work in, a mining career can expose one to a certain degree of life or health risks. Those who work in surface mines can be subjected to dangerous weather conditions but granted; surface mining is not as dangerous underground mining. 

Aside of the heat, excessive noise and dampness in underground mining, there are also the dangers of explosions and cave-ins. The possibility of being trapped in a mine when there is a cave-in is real, and miners some have died in cases where they couldn’t be rescued. Miners are also exposed to lung diseases due to the dust that is generated from the drilling. 

In the face of the health risks, strict safety regulations have been instituted whereby it is mandatory for miners to protect themselves with the proper gear at all times. 

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