Building Capacity for the U.S. Mineral Resources Workforce

The extraction of mineral resources provides the raw materials necessary to produce the products and technologies on which the global economy depends, including green technologies essential for decarbonization. Mineral extraction requires expertise in a range of areas - including mineral resources identification, environmental evaluation, processing, and reclamation - but many of the U.S. academic programs that have historically educated the U.S. minerals workforce face significant challenges attracting students and maintaining financial viability. For some programs, enrollment dropped 60 percent from 2015 to 2023, despite a growing demand for a minerals workforce.

The National Academies convened a workshop on January 23-24, 2024 to consider how the United States can build the capacity of federal and state agencies, academia, and the private sector to meet U.S. mineral workforce needs. Participants addressed the urgent need to attract more students, discussed a need to integrate new disciplines into curricula as the industry evolves, and identified multipronged approaches to help enhance overall retention and recruitment. This proceedings synthesizes the key suggestions presented by participants that universities, companies, and government agencies could take to enhance the recruitment, training, and retention of workers in the mineral resources industry.