MMG is offering traineeships and apprenticeships for people from the Kalkadoon traditional owners’ group and other local residents at its new Dugald River mine in north-west Queensland.

The recruitment campaign for the first intake went live last week on the company website and has been promoted in The North West Star newspaper.

MMG Dugald River operations manager Sam Rodda said the site’s Native Title agreement included a commitment to establish a training program with a minimum yearly intake of 10 apprentices or trainees.

At least five of the roles should go to people associated with the Kalkadoon native title group, while the remainder must go to other regional Indigenous applicants or local residents generally.

“I think that’s a big win for the development of local and Indigenous people in that district,” Mr Rodda said.

The Dugald River operation is expected to start producing concentrate by the end of the year, ramping up to nameplate capacity in 2018.

MMG has completed recruitment of its operational workforce, running assessment centres in its preferred hiring communities of Mount Isa and Cloncurry as well as its preferred fly-in, fly-out hub – Townsville.

“We received a large number of applications for our processing and maintenance roles,” Mr Rodda said.

“We then held value-based assessment centres to evaluate employees who were a fit for MMG values and with the necessary experience to give us a successful ramp-up.”

Mr Rodda admitted that the company would like to have employed a higher proportion of its workforce from Mount Isa and Cloncurry area.

“We had a lot more east coast applicants and we had a lot more east coast applicants with the right skills and experience than we had locally,” he said.

In steady state operations, MMG and contract partners at Dugald River will employ 350-400 people – with 250 to 300 on site at any one time.

More information on the new traineeships and apprenticeships at http://careers.mmg.com/caw/en/job/496055/dugald-river-apprenticeships-traineeships-2018