Twitter, tweet, #, @…… are you tired of hearing about Twitter?  Yeah….me too.  But, Twitter must be working as we witness more and more companies beginning to ‘tweet’ their jobs out there.  The latest is Barrick Gaming who offers mining jobs in Nevada. 

Barrick has actually done a phenomenal job on their careers website.  They have incorporated all the various types of social media and highlight testimonials from their current workers.  This is all found to be highly effective. 

Oh….by the way, Recruiting Nevada has had a Twitter account @VegasJobs for quite some time.  We haven’t really done much with it yet, but have plans to soon.  We are still determining what would be the most meaningful strategy.  Most job boards are just feeding all of their jobs out to Twitter.  At some point in time someone will scream ‘this is spam,’ as tens of thousands of job postings clutter the system.  If you have any ideas of what may be effective, I would love to hear them…Doug[at]RecruitingNevada.com.

The U.S. Census Bureau recently released statistics that show Elko County has the highest median family income in Nevada.  This will shock many in Southern Nevada who thought that the gaming industry offered the most lucrative career opportunities in Nevada – when in fact, it is gaming.

The mining industry is what drives Elko’s economy and allows its population to earn the sizable income it does.  In this tough economy, we need to be thankful for mining jobs in Nevada. 

Although Nevada has reached the highest unemployment level (7.1%) in over 20 years, critical workforce shortages still exist in particular industries such as health care, engineering and mining. 

During economic slowdowns the mining industry booms as the value of gold and silver continue to increase.  In Nevada, mining is the third largest industry, only following gaming and construction. 

So what are the Mining Jobs in Nevada?  Nevada needs mining engineers, geologists and safety professionals. 

And just like the nursing shortage, there is no end in site.  The United States needs 350 new mining specialists each year and the educational infrastructure is only providing an average of 130.  And just as the nursing profession, the mining professors are retiring at an alarming rate.  The average age of a miner is over 50 years old.

Also similar to the nursing shortage, the mining shortage is a global shortage.  Australia has over 80,000 vacancies including not only engineers and geologists, but bolters, truck drivers and other mining specialities.