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We take a look at the latest numbers from the Annual Financial Statistics (AFS) survey published by Statistics South Africa (Stats SA). We focus on the employee costs as a percentage of total income in South Africa's mining and quarrying industry. And its no surprise that gold miners are struggling. Employee costs as percentage of total income is far greater in this sub industry than the rest of the mining and quarrying industry.
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Gold mining industry employee costs far greater than other mining categories
The interactive bar chart below shows the employee costs as a percentage of total income for various mining sub industries, as well as the average for the industry as a whole. Basically the bar chart shows what percentage of all income earned by various mining sub industries are used to pay employees. The higher the bar chart the greater the chunk of income earned that is used to pay staff.
From the bar chart above it is pretty clear that Gold and uranium mining employee costs is far greater than that of the rest of the mining and quarrying industry. Almost 29% of all income earned by gold and uranium mining is spent on employee costs. This while the average for the mining industry as a whole is sitting at 18.49%. A sign that gold and uranium miners are paid to much? Or income earned in the industry is so low that employee costs makes up a greater chunk of overall spending?
The industry with the lowest employee costs to total income percentage is that of "Extraction of crude petroleum oils and natural gas" with employee costs making up 9.65% of total income earned. Basically that is third of the percentage of income spent on employees compared to the gold and uranium mining industry. The lime stone and limeworks industry is another with a very low percentage of total income spent on employee costs with it sitting at just over 10%. The full list of mining and quarrying sub industries are shown below as well as each percentage of total income spent on employee costs (sorted in ascending order)
We have predicted a few times in our articles that the gold mining industry will continue to die a slow painful death. And we still believe what was once the driver of South Africa's economic fortunes will continue to stumble along aimlessly and eventually die off. We do hope that gold mining employers train employees and help them develop other skills so that should gold mines continue to close down they can at least find alternative employment away from mining.
The industry with the lowest employee costs to total income percentage is that of "Extraction of crude petroleum oils and natural gas" with employee costs making up 9.65% of total income earned. Basically that is third of the percentage of income spent on employees compared to the gold and uranium mining industry. The lime stone and limeworks industry is another with a very low percentage of total income spent on employee costs with it sitting at just over 10%. The full list of mining and quarrying sub industries are shown below as well as each percentage of total income spent on employee costs (sorted in ascending order)
- Extraction of crude petroleum oils and natural gas: 9.65%
- Limestone and limeworks: 10.10%
- Other metal ore mining including mineral sands: 12.76%
- Dimension stone (granite, marble etc.) : 13.65%
- Extraction and evaporation salt: 13.69%
- Other mining and quarrying n.e.c : 14.32%
- Mining of diamonds (including alluvial diamonds): 15.96%
- Mining of coal (hard) and lignite (brown coal): 16.57%
- Mining of iron ore; mining of chrome and PGM : 16.96%
- Other stone quarrying: 17.75%
- Mining of chemical and fertilizer minerals: 18.31%
- Total: 18.49%
- Service activities incidental to mining of minerals: 23.69%
- Mining of gold and uranium ore: 28.87%
We have predicted a few times in our articles that the gold mining industry will continue to die a slow painful death. And we still believe what was once the driver of South Africa's economic fortunes will continue to stumble along aimlessly and eventually die off. We do hope that gold mining employers train employees and help them develop other skills so that should gold mines continue to close down they can at least find alternative employment away from mining.