The True Engine of Mining Expansion
Expansion of Argentine mining is often viewed as a challenge of capital and permits, but it is also a challenge of people. An announcement cannot secure overnight an electromechanical technician with three job offers on his phone or a supervisor capable of leading fourteen days in a high-altitude camp without exhausting his team.
The Argentine Chamber of Mining Entrepreneurs projects that full development of copper and lithium could require around 200,000 jobs by 2032. It is an enormous opportunity for the country and a reality for which we must prepare ourselves.
Hiring people is not enough. We need skilled workers and teams capable of collaborating, communicating, and reaching their full potential. Otherwise, we could reach the largest Argentine mining expansion without the capacity to sustain it.
The challenges of modern mining go far beyond diplomas and technical knowledge. The role of values and culture is central. Photo: McEwen Copper.
For those of us who lead teams, this scenario requires attention. Their attitude often reflects the leadership they receive. In high-performance teams, behaviors emerge that exceed what is required: preparing an unsolicited report, reviewing a task before failure occurs, or flagging a risk even when uncomfortable. That commitment is not imposed: it is built and earned.
A team is not just a group of people working together, but one that trusts each other. The Navy SEALs, when selecting candidates, assess performance and trust: they prefer medium performance with high trust over outstanding performance incapable of generating it. They consider the latter profile toxic.
Those who have managed a shift probably recognize this: the best technician can be the one who prevents others from expressing doubts, reporting errors, or warning of dangers. Where safety depends on communicating in time, this is not just a workplace climate problem: it is an operational risk.
Los Azules Project, San Juan.
People perform better when they feel safe, recognized, and connected. Trust is not merely "soft": it influences how we think, decide, and act.
We must also avoid promoting the best technician without asking ourselves if he knows how to listen, communicate, resolve conflicts, and motivate. Something similar happens between departments: they can function well separately without achieving the results of an integrated team. Each area must fulfill its task, collaborate, share information, and trust others.
Women are not a quota: they are available and valuable talent
Female participation is part of the same challenge. Women represent 13% of Argentine mining employment, and Women in Mining Argentina projects they will reach 15% by 2029. It is progress, although insufficient for a sector that needs to expand its workforce.
If the limit to growth is the availability of talent, leaving out female talent is a misguided decision. In lithium, female participation reaches 20.6%; in Salta, it represents 18.5% of direct mining employment; and at Los Azules, I am proud that we are approaching 30%.
Mining demands leadership, openness to dialogue, and caring for people. The Los Azules vision.
These results did not require reducing technical standards or hiring less qualified people. They required reviewing selection processes, adapting camp infrastructure, and analyzing promotion criteria.
Diverse teams often analyze problems better. In mining, managing risks requires expressing different opinions, asking questions, and contradicting a decision in time. That discomfort can be an advantage. Inclusion also demands conditions so that everyone participates, develops, and is heard.
Artificial Intelligence: Learning to Leverage It
Artificial intelligence poses a management challenge: we need mental flexibility and willingness to learn.
It is fine to use the boat that a tool offers, as long as we do not stop learning to swim. We can rely on AI, but not depend on it without understanding what we do. It does not replace operational judgment: it enhances experience and analytical capacity, but also exposes its absence.
The opportunity is concrete. AI will not secure the electromechanical technicians we need, but it can shorten the learning curve, capture the knowledge of an operator with twenty years of experience before retirement, and free professionals who today consolidate reports to analyze, solve problems, and decide better.
Building solid and high-performance teams becomes fundamental in modern mining. Photo: courtesy Los Azules, McEwen Copper.
Training people faster can be as important as hiring more. To leverage it, we must understand it, experiment responsibly, and integrate it into our operations.
In Summary
We must value attitude, measure trust with the same rigor as tonnage, and consider rest, shifts, and workplace climate as technical variables that affect safety, productivity, and operational continuity.
We also need to open the sector to more women and develop middle management before it becomes urgent. In an operation with rotating shifts, the direct supervisor is not just the company's representative: for fourteen days, his team sees him as the entire company.
Mining expansion offers an extraordinary opportunity for Argentina. We can navigate it from desperation to fill positions or from the inspiration of building solid, diverse teams prepared to sustain growth.