Russell Coker via luv-talk wrote:
On Thursday, 17 May 2018 8:39:43 AM AEST Lindsay W via luv-talk wrote:
Darwin has a population of 142,000 greater Adelaide's population is 1.3 million, Melbourne's is 4.8 million. Melbourne historical has a large manufacturing base, even now something like a 2000ton train load of steel arrives in Melbourne every day, so there will always be more positions availible.
Steel work employs a small fraction of the number of people it used to. The processes of mining and refining all metals have increased in scale while requiring less workers. The uses for metal have also tended to scale up with robotic manufacturing.
Not sure about historically, but here are current figures (from 2016 and 2017): * Australia produces 830M tonnes of iron ore (hematite &c) per year. * Australia produces 5M tonnes of steel per year. * China produces 1700M tonnes of steel per year. * IOW we export the raw material, we don't bother to refine it into pig iron, then bar iron, then steel. * Korea requires about 1000 people per 1M tonne per year, so Australia's *steel* industry should require around 5000 people. * Note that's to make iron into steel; Lindsay was talking about making steel into things (I-beams, fences, &c). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_steel_industry_trends#Reduction_in_work... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steel_production_by_country https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mining_in_Australia#cite_ref-8