Making a major career change can be difficult at any age, but trying to get into a physically demanding industry at 54 years old requires courage — and a touch of creativity doesn’t hurt.
Thanks to both, Edward Clermont is about to start his dream career as an underground miner. And it wasn’t with an attention-grabbing resume: he put up a billboard on the side of the Trans-Canada Highway in Sudbury, Ont.
“I’ve always kind of challenged myself with different things in life,” said Clermont, who described underground mining as “the ultimate challenge.” Clairmont said his philosophy on life is simple: “Just keep moving forward, keep learning, and keep doing things that I’m told I’m too old to do. Prove them wrong.”
Clermont, who currently lives in Kingston, Ont., has taken a somewhat unusual career path. He worked on oil rigs in Alberta, spent many years in construction, and is now preparing to go underground.
“The only tougher job I could think of is working a crab boat out of Alaska. So, I’ll take the second-hardest job I could find, and we’ll see how that works,” he said.
Clermont enrolled in the Underground Hard Rock Miner Common Core program at NORCAT in Sudbury. NORCAT offers labour training and an innovation space for developing new mining technologies. It includes a working mine environment to help students prepare for their future careers.
“It was quite the experience, and it really changed me,” said Clermont, describing the thrill he felt when using a jackleg drill at the NORCAT Underground Centre.
But using that training to get into the workforce can be a different challenge altogether.
“Mining is very much a word-of-mouth industry,” said Clermont. Several people at the school encouraged him to find a creative way to approach his job search.
One of those people was Greg Major, the director of the NORCAT Underground Centre.
“Students have got … all kinds of great ideas. But having a sign on the highway that says ‘I’m ready for work, I’ve received my training,’ that’s pretty amazing,” said Major, who noted that this is the first time a student has tried such a unique job-search technique.
The mining workforce in Canada is facing growing staffing shortages, putting workers like Clermont in fairly high demand.
According to the Mining Industry Human Resources Council, in 2023, 18 per cent of mining workers — about one in five — were 55 years old or older. The share of workers under the age of 25 has also been on a downward trend for the past decade, making up about five per cent of the workforce in that year.
“Simply put, we are not training enough students in the programs we need,” the council wrote about the trends. “Demand for skilled workers is growing, but many mining-centric programs have declining enrolments.”
But, said Major, mines also have to make sure they’re bringing in the best possible workers to keep their operations running smoothly. That’s why he advocates for job-seekers to take an active approach to make themselves stand out for the roles they want.
Near the end of his NORCAT training, Clermont’s billboard went up on Highway 17 in Greater Sudbury. Soon after, he took on a job with an open-pit gold mine northeast of Cochrane, Ont., as a haul truck driver.
It was a start, but Clermont was still hoping to work underground. As more traffic passed his billboard, his LinkedIn page got more and more hits, and he began speaking with mine supervisors and superintendents across Canada.
One of the people who noticed his sign was Joe Bell, the training and recruitment manager with Cementation Canada, based in North Bay, Ont. His company is a full-service mine building contractor, and he said he receives more than 50 resumes a day from prospective workers.
Bell said it’s tough to get started in mining without prior experience, but Clermont stood out because he appeared to be determined, sincere, and safety-conscious, so Bell forwarded his resume to the managers at several of Cementation’s mine sites.
“We hire people in their 50s and 60s, and sometimes even in their 70s on a regular basis. There’s no real age discrimination. Like, if they’ve got the skills, and actually do the work, we have plenty of opportunities,” said Bell.
Soon, Clermont received an offer for what he calls his ‘dream job,’ working underground at the Musselwhite gold mine in northwestern Ontario. It’s a nine-month contract as a construction miner, where he’ll be drilling, bolting and blasting rock underground.
“I get a lot of satisfaction out of knowing that I can, at this age, do something most people even half my age could never do,” he said, and he hopes to be working in mining for the next 15 years of his life.
