To say that 2023 was a difficult year for businesses is an understatement. The world faced some significant challenges including ongoing conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East and uncertainty surrounding the geo-political environment in the Asia-Pacific. For any commodity sector this instability means a lack of confidence within the market. Add to that widespread labour shortages, wildly fluctuating costs and unforeseen government interventions meant that business confidence understandably fell in 2023. However, off the back of strong steelmaking coal demand, the prospect of significant renewable energy projects and the continuing focus on critical minerals and new initiatives through the Resources Centre of Excellence, our local resources sector and supply chain which the Resource Industry Network (RIN) supports, remains buoyant.
To support this the Queensland Resources Council released its State of the Sector figures in November 2023 showing that, within our region, a record number of people are working in jobs supported by the mining and energy sector. The report shows that in the 2022/2023 Financial Year the resources sector now supports 85,000 jobs in the region. This represents almost 80% of Mackay-Isaac-Whitsunday’s total employment. Translating that into monetary figures, the sector contributed over $18 billion last financial year to the Mackay-Isaac-Whitsunday region. That is 91% of the region’s total Gross Domestic Product.
What all this means is that even in the face of adversity the resources industry, along with its supply chain, continued to push forward in 2023, and subsequently benefiting the region.
Looking forward to 2024, I can see that the resources sector will continue to face challenges from instability across the globe. On the positive side, domestically there are signs that labour pressures are starting to ease. While we may not see improvements immediately in our region, there is hope that as the year progresses, we will see an increased availability of labour for the sector.
2024 will also be the year that renewable energy projects in the region move into the spotlight. These projects will contribute to the continued operation of our mine sites as Queensland moves towards its net zero targets. The region’s METS sector has the skills, knowledge and capability to play a significant part in the renewable energy sector. Our businesses are well placed to benefit from any renewable projects that go ahead in our region.
Dean Kirkwood
General Manager, Resource Industry Network
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