Friday, October 29, 2010, ADELLA HARDING Mining Editor Elko Daily Free Press

Report: Mining provides high-paying jobs

ELKO - A new national report shows mining and mining-related jobs in Nevada make up 3.2 percent of the state's workforce, and the industry is important to the state's economy.

The National Mining Association report found that 50,750 jobs in Nevada were tied to mining in 2008, whether for gold, silver or copper or for limestone, cement, aggregate and more.

"The report takes a fairly narrow look at vendors," National Mining Association spokeswoman Carol Raulston said today. "They are directly related to mining."

The report also found the average direct mining wage was $78,549 a year in Nevada, compared with the state average of $48,840. The NMA report also found the mining industry makes up 5.6 percent of Nevada's economy, contributing more than $7 billion to the gross national product.

The figures in the Economic Contributions of U.S. Mining in 2008 report compiled by PricewaterhouseCoopers for the NMA were based on figures that don't reflect all the layoffs in Nevada that might change the industry's share of contributions to the state's economy and workforce.

"The numbers for the states lag behind," Raulston said. Nationwide, the report found the mining industry provides 1.8 million jobs for Americans, who work in coal, metals and minerals mining or directly supply goods and services to mining.

The report also states that more than 564,000 Americans were employed directly by an estimated 15,000 mining operations in the United States and their support and transportation providers in 2008. An additional 1.23 million American jobs were generated by suppliers, including suppliers of capital goods for mining operations, and through the impact of payroll spending, according to the NMA.

"This report clearly demonstrates mining's value to individual states and to the entire economy," said Hal Quinn, president and chief executive officer of the National Mining Association, in the announcement on the report released earlier this week. "The United States has a robust mining industry that today supports high-wage employment to produce coal for fueling roughly half the nation's electricity and metals and minerals that are vital to U.S. manufacturing, consumer products and our national defense," he said.

Although people in the West tend to think most mining is west of Nebraska, the report found that the most mining-related jobs are in Texas, 112,260, and Nevada didn't make the top five. California had the second most jobs, 103,090, followed by Pennsylvania, 96,060, Kentucky, 69,280, and Arizona, 67,920.

The report's average pay for metals miners, $75,900, was lower than Nevada's average, and the average pay for coal miners in 2008 was $72,200. The report states these averages are more than 60 percent higher than the average wage for all U.S. occupations.

In a number of states, mining comprised a remarkably large percentage of total employment, according to the report: Wyoming, 8.6 percent; West Virginia, 6.6 percent; Montana, 3.8 percent; Nevada, 3.2 percent; Kentucky, 2.9 percent; Alaska, 2.6 percent; New Mexico, 2.2 percent; and Arizona and Utah, 2 percent. U.S. mining made particularly large contributions to the economies of a half dozen states, PricewaterhouseCooper found.

Those with the largest share of their economy attributed to mining include: Wyoming, 14 percent; West Virginia, 11.6 percent; Montana, 7 percent; Nevada, 5.6 percent; and Kentucky, 4.6 percent.

The report also stated that mining related jobs supported a $107 billion payroll in 2008, added $189 billion to the GDP and paid nearly $45 billion in taxes to local, state and federal governments.

Raulston said the NMA was ordering the economic reports on mining every other year but is looking at doing them every year. The full report is available on the NMA website at www.nma.org.