TCC is committed to encouraging local employment and economic development opportunities to the communities of the Chagai district, Balochistan Province, and Pakistan as a whole. TCC endorses the ‘Adjacency Principle’ by which local people from surrounding areas of the operations possessing the skills needed or demonstrating an aptitude to be trained for a particular job within the mine will have preferential treatment in its hiring approach. TCC has a policy of giving preference in employment and business opportunities in all areas of operations to qualified and experienced citizens and companies of Pakistan, and in particular, those from Balochistan. As a direct result of this commitment, more than 83% of employees at Reko Diq are currently from the province of Balochistan.
Sourcing skilled local labor will be a challenge for TCC at Reko Diq as the requisite skills sets for construction or operations are not readily available in the immediate proximity of the project site.
Skills development will commence prior to the start of construction and continue throughout operations. TCC’s integrated training strategy will evolve as the project proceeds commencing initially with basic skills development (feeder) programmes to be followed by vocational training programmes in preparation for the construction phase and finally, the operational-readiness training programmes will prepare selected employees for running the mine after commissioning.
In general terms, successful graduates of the basic skills development programmes will be eligible for vocational training for construction jobs, and as the construction is completed the high-potential construction workers will be recruited into TCC to continue their development and be re-trained as operators for the production phase.
Current TCC employees will continue with personal development training and also will be offered the opportunity to participate in the Vocational Training, and be eligible for construction and operations positions.
Employee Training
TCC’s current employees are encouraged to continuously improve their skills to achieve their maximum potential. TCC will continue to provide opportunities to its employees to improve their skills for both technical and managerial tasks and arrange both in-house and external training programs for all employees based on training need assessment and recommendations from the respective department heads.
The two main areas in which training shall be provided are:
- Technical training.
- Leadership training.
TCC has ongoing training programs for its employees. Various technical training courses have been organized at Technical Training Center Quetta and DESCON Training Institute in Lahore for TCC employees. The courses included welding, electricity technician, auto mechanical, pipe and general fitter, plumbing and computer literacy, among others.
Community Employability Support Projects (Feeder Programmes)
In line with its commitment to help develop local work force, TCC plans to support more initiatives that aim to provide basic skills for potential candidates for non-skilled labour positions in order to build capacity of the unskilled workforce to address the anticipated mismatch between labour supply and demand during the construction phases. TCC has already implemented a pilot project through a Quetta-based NGO on literarcy and basic skills for 120 people in Nok Kundi.
Literacy is a fundamental requirement for all personnel engaged in mining or industrial activity. Modern industry requires that its employees know and understand the policies and procedures which govern and operation. The need to be able to engage in two way dialogue with all employees is paramount in developing a workforce that respects health, safety, environment , and community and develops culture that strives to continually improve. More Literacy programmes will be put in place by TCC , with the objective of providing literacy, life-skills and vocational/technical training, in the Chagai district of Balochistan.
Future Employment Opportunities
We shall be expanding as project moves forward and we will be looking for people with a wide range of skills to help us deliver world class mining operation at Reko Diq. In the construction phase about 10,000 people will be required and as construction comes to completion, around 2,500 will have direct employment for running the operations.
Following a policy of merit based and transparent hiring process, recruitment campaigns will be launched as these opportunities become available in future to attract the best talent available in Balochistan. Wide range of opportunities and roles are likely to emerge in the following areas: Industrial Health professionals; environmental professionals; security professionals; project roles in services Construction/ commissioning; engineering roles; superintendents/team leaders; operations roles- field operations and site production/plant management roles; supply chain management roles; exploration roles-geologits;metallurgists;support services-legal; corporate affairs; general administration; infrastructure management roles; maintenance; marketing; drivers; operators; technicians; and miscellaneous semi-skilled & skilled labour.