Hi guys,

Just after abit of advice. I am a Manufacturing Engineer by trade and am interested in cashing in on the Mining opportunities.

We are a family of 4 with 2 young children (aged 4 and 8 years old). Can any one recommend any mining towns/areas that would be family orientated? Also for a Manufacturing Engineer with 10 years experience outside the mining industry any ideas on salary?

Cheers for any help.

Wolly Bully

G'day Wolly Bully,

I'm in the electronics manufacturing industry and see quite a few adverts for manufacturing engineers here in brisbane. I think most of the manufacturing is done in the state capitals then shipped to the mines.

The impression I get of the mining towns is the miners get loads of cash but the cost of accommodation is stupid. Also everything else gets shipped to the mining towns and it costs a fortune. These places tend to be the back of beyond so not good for families, IMO

The common thing is to live in a state capital and spend a couple of weeks working away then a week off and so on, not very good for new migrants though. Salery for miners is $100k plus p.a, manufacturing engineer is $50-80k (in brisbane)

What manufacturing do you do?

Check out www.seek.com.au

Good Luck

There,s a few in Roxby Downs sth Aust.
http://employment.byron.com.au/jobs/...-sa-north.html
.....................mm

have a look at the gladstone area not sure about manufacturing engineering though but theres alot going on we live in tannum sands theres queensland alumina www.qal.com and boyne smelters the worlds largest alumina refinery australias largest aluminium smelter also is
queenslands biggest power station and australias largest cement provider
and qlds largest cargo port theres also a new refinery being built and a new mine opening too think it was for coal
http://http://www.makethemove.info/ http://http://www.gladstoneregion.in...es.asp?code=75

also forgot to add 50-80k doesnt seem very much money for engineers there was a big write up in the paper a few weeks ago that trainee truck drivers were getting 80k in mt isa

Thanks Guys,

That's given me a good heads up and starting point

I'll check out the links.

Gladstone sounds like a busy old place!

Cheers
WB

family oriented mining town..... definitely an oxymoron!

In my experience mining towns are often very expensive to live in as housing goes through the roof along with the wages. Our old mining town also had terrible infrastructure and services. I once stood in line for 45 minutes to pay for my groceries! Ok, rant over

But anyway, you could look into the Hunter Valley area. It's a mining town in NSW that's only an hour from the coast. As far as mining towns go it's pretty good. Most of the other mines in Australia are out in the middle of nowhere.

Fly in fly out is an option if needed, although I wouldn't recommend it. It's not the greatest for family life. But it would be a start in the industry.

I would try and call some employers and find out where all the work is based. Maybe you're not based at the mine at all, which would be ideal.

Check out www.seek.com.au for jobs and see find out where they're located.

Gladstone isn't really a mining town. The coalfields are many kms from here. There is an aluminium smelter, an alumina refinery, possibly a second smelter being constructed, a power station and a chemical works.

A lot of the people at work have families and they seem reasonably happy.

Don't know about salary but I think the salaries in WA are much higher than QLD.