In a strategic move to bridge the burgeoning skills gap in the global mining industry, ABB has launched the Hoisting Young Engineer Exchange Programme to attract the next generation of talented engineering graduates to a career in mine hoisting.

Young talent can apply for the program via the dedicated landing page.
The international, two-year programme features time spent in the participants’ local engineering teams, followed by a couple of overseas rotations in ABB’s key hoisting markets, namely Canada, Australia, Poland, South Africa, Sweden or China.

Within each rotation, graduates will learn about the latest industry technology and have the chance to apply it directly on ABB’s customer sites. Unlike many traditional training programmes, ABB’s new programme has an individually tailored schedule and involves direct customer work.

“The global mining industry is facing a significant talent shortage – we’re seeing that demand is already outstripping supply, and there is much competition in the market to attract young engineering talent,” said Lisa Gustavsson, Global HR Business Partner at ABB. “This is why we’re excited to launch this global exchange programme for young engineers. We are giving young talent the opportunity to truly make a difference and work on some of the most exciting mine sites in the world. It’s a significant step to ensuring that that the business will continue to attract the best talent in the market to serve our customers and build a world-class organization while contributing to a more sustainable future.” 

As ABB’s hoisting business is growing rapidly, the company is looking to strengthen its organisation on both the project and service side, including senior employees with deep technical expertise as well as young graduate engineers.

“For our customers, the mine hoist is a business-critical application, and it is among some of the most technologically advanced solutions in their operations,” said Björn Jonsson, Global Business Line Manager, Hoisting at ABB. “To deliver such projects, we need the best people to work closely with our customers from design to execution and servicing the technology throughout the lifetime of the hoist.”

“The nature of work in the mining industry is changing. There is growing demand for data and digital literacy skills. To build a successful and sustainable business for the future, we also need to attract a different kind of talent,” said Jonsson.

The mining industry plays a pivotal role in building a more sustainable economy. The availability of metals and minerals will decide the pace of the global energy transition. To continue to responsibly extract the metals essential for electric vehicles, wind turbines and solar panels – copper, gold, and iron, among others – deeper mines will be needed. For this, mine hoists offer a low-carbon, reliable and safe solution to transport ore from great depts.

ABB has been a leader in developing world-class hoisting solutions for over 130 years. Powered by electricity with the possibility to run off renewable energy sources, hoists are a future-forward solution. To date, ABB has delivered over 1000 hoisting solutions globally. As the sole supplier of complete mine hoist systems, customers can benefit from low lifecycle cost, high reliability and system availability, short project execution time, and a single source of supply for complete systems, including service and spare parts.

ABB will continue to build the programme to help attract young talent to its growing hoisting business and offer graduates an exciting career in an industry vital for the green transformation.

Contact Ofentse Dijoe, ABB, ofentse.dijoe@za.abb.com