“We picked up a second site and two more crews this year. The office went from two people to four, everyone's flat out, and nothing is moving any faster. We're just doing more typing.”
— WA mining supplier, $22M revenue, 120 workers
Working Harder, Not Smarter: Five Years of Falling Mining Productivity and the Part a Supplier Controls
In short
- ABS 2024–25: mining productivity fell 3.3%, the fifth straight annual fall, mostly because of weather, maintenance shutdowns and the extra hours spent restoring production.
- Office admin did not cause the fall, but it is the part a supplier controls: one person often keeps 5–10 systems that do not talk to each other in step.
- One system instead of 5–10 removes the re-keying. Xero or MYOB stays as the accounts system.
Mining productivity has fallen five years in a row. Most of that is at the pit. This briefing is about the part a supplier can fix: its own office.
5 yrs
of falling mining productivity. Mining had the biggest fall of any industry in 2024–25: −3.3%1
+5.6%
more hours worked in mining in 2024–25, for 1.1% less output1
6–9
separate tools many Australian small business owners juggle just to get basic tasks done3
The national picture
The ABS measures productivity as how well an industry turns labour and capital into output. In 2024–25 mining’s productivity fell 3.3%, its fifth straight annual fall. Output dropped 1.1% while hours worked rose 5.6%.1 The Productivity Commission summed up the whole economy in one line: “we are working harder and longer, but we are not working smarter.”2
Be clear about the cause. The ABS puts mining’s fall down to weather, maintenance shutdowns and the extra hours needed to get production back. Office paperwork didn’t cause it, and a supplier can’t fix the pit. What a supplier does control is how many hours its own office spends keeping the work moving.
Why it lands on a supplier’s office
People are scarce and expensive. WA’s resources sector employed about 143,200 people in February 2026, and the 2026–31 project pipeline needs 8,177 new operating workers on top.4 87% of mining employees earn over $1,500 a week,5 so every office hire you make competes with mine-site pay.
Admin caps growth. 48% of Australian small and medium businesses walked away from a growth opportunity in the past year for lack of time or people.3 For a supplier, that is the next site, crew or tender.
The work lives in a person. Of 81 WA mining admin ads we read this year, 72% involve mobilisation or travel, yet only 14% name any software.6 The ads list the jobs because one person carries the process.
How a 30–200 staff supplier runs today
- Each new worker typed into the roster, tracker, matrix and client portal.
- Services on a whiteboard, parts in Excel, purchases by email.
- The client report rebuilt by hand every month.
What that costs
- One person in the middle of 5–10 systems.
- Errors found at the Tier-1 gate or by the client.
- A new admin hire for every new site.
One system instead of 5–10
Office software put the paperwork on a computer in the 1990s, but a person still carries it from one program to the next. 59% of Australian small and medium businesses say their software runs in silos, costing about 7 hours a week in re-keying and checking.7 AI tools on top don’t fix it: only 23% of businesses say theirs are fully connected to their other systems.8
One record, used by every desk
People & Workforce
Worker details go in once; the mobilisation pack, flights and timesheet use them.
Safety & Compliance
Matrix and expiry alerts from the same record; audit pack ready for WorkSafe (LGIRS).
Training & competency matrixIncident report & SRS notification
Operations & Maintenance
A service due becomes a booking, a parts check and a maintenance record.
Commercial & Finance
Client reports build from existing records. Xero or MYOB stays your accounts system.
The difference. A faster keyboard speeds up the hand-offs. One system removes them: AI agents do the paperwork, your team signs off, and you add the next site without the next admin hire.
Why a digital file is still a manual job is the subject of Thirty Years of Word, Excel and Email.
What it is worth to a 30–200 staff supplier (modelled, per year)
Recovered admin labour, not a subscription cost. The bigger number: you win the next site without hiring the next admin. What the software costs is on the pricing page.
Count your systems — tick what your office runs today
Frequently Asked Questions
Did office admin cause mining’s productivity fall?
No. The ABS puts mining’s 2024–25 fall down to weather, maintenance shutdowns and the extra hours needed to get production back. Office paperwork did not cause it, and a supplier cannot fix the pit. What a supplier does control is how many hours its own office spends keeping the work moving — and that is where one system instead of 5–10 pays.
Will AI tools on top of our current software fix the re-keying?
Not on their own. 59% of Australian small and medium businesses say their software runs in silos, costing about 7 hours a week in re-keying and checking, and only 23% say their AI tools are fully connected to their other systems. A faster keyboard speeds up the hand-offs. One system removes them: the worker, the service or the client report is entered once and every desk uses the same record.
Do we have to replace Xero or MYOB?
No. Xero or MYOB stays your accounts system. DrilLedger replaces the spreadsheets, whiteboards, email chains and paper books around it — the roster, mobilisation tracker, training matrix, service schedule, parts list and client reports — so the data reaches your accounts without being typed in again.
Sources
- ABS, Estimates of Industry Multifactor Productivity 2024–25 (Feb 2026), hours-worked basis.
- Productivity Commission, Quarterly productivity bulletin, June 2026.
- Intuit, The Growth Gap, reported in the AFR, Nov 2025.
- AREEA media release, WA’s flagship projects keep jobs rather than create them, on the Resources and Energy Workforce Forecast 2026–2031 (Oct 2026).
- Bankwest Curtin Economics Centre, WA’s Resources Sector in Transition (June 2026).
- DrilLedger analysis of 81 WA mining admin job ads, Apr–Jun 2026 (method and full results). Download the data (CSV).
- MYOB, The Digital Disconnection Challenge (2022, 1,531 Australian businesses).
- Decidr, The state of AI in Australian business (2026).
- DrilLedger recovered admin labour model (not a quote). Figures are modelled, not results from paying customers.
We publish the data and method behind our own figures, so you can check them: the job-ad analysis (method, full results and a CSV of every table) and the recovered admin labour model (hourly rates, reference supplier, worked examples and limits).
30-day free trial. No credit card required.
Take the 2-min Mining Admin Scorecard