West Coast gold mining boom: High paid jobs surge in Reefton and Greymouth

Answers vary, but many locals say the better job opportunities are the most notable benefits to all this activity for the local communities, in particular, Reefton, Greymouth, and Westport.

Endura is hiring entry-level miners on $90,000 a year and currently advertising for other positions paying considerably more, ranging from training co-ordinator to mining operations all-rounder.

Stats NZ figures confirm that the sector’s median wage sits above $125,000 a year, the highest across all industries with the possible exception of financial services (who occupies the top spot depends on how the data is sliced).

Endura has roughly 100 staff and expects that number to double in the coming 12 months. Further down the track, Rua expects to add hundreds more employees through mine operations and ore processing.

All of that is in addition to the roughly 200 jobs tied to smaller scale alluvial gold mining operations in the district, most locally owned, which vary in size from just one or two employees up to about 20.

Those numbers alone have more than trebled over the last few years as the price of gold has soared.

That historic rise has taken the price from under $3000 an ounce at the beginning of 2023 to well over $7000 now.

Many of the Endura and Rua jobs allow for fly-in fly-out arrangements, and, more commonly, drive-in drive-out. But the companies are also hiring locally and, through relocation payments in Endura’s case, attracting new settlement to the area.

Westport’s South Peak Homes recently built and delivered six prefabricated cabins, four double units and two singles, to the Buller District Council-owned Reefton Campground and all have been leased by Endura for worker accommodation.

The $1.7m up-front cost was paid through grants and loans made by Endura, the council and regional development agency and charitable trust Development West Coast, which has also taken equity stakes in several mining companies with local projects, including Endura.

Down the road in Greymouth, Canterbury-based Ball Developments has been developing property for 20 years.

Owner Geoff Ball told the Herald that 2025 has been his best year yet – he sold roughly 20 sections and house and land packages.

The gold mining activity has “made a big difference”, he said, and so, too, has a plan by Tāiko Critical Minerals Limited (formerly TiGa Mines and Metals) to mine and process minerals including ilmenite, garnet, zircon, gold and rare earth minerals in nearby Barrytown.

It, too, is planning to make use of the Government’s new “single window” fast-track consenting process and hopes to reach full-scale mining – with 130 mining and processing jobs – in 2028.

One of the most obvious signs of rising mining-related activity recently has been the lift in sales of “big yellow equipment” and roads busy with heavy haulage, according to Heath Milne, the chief executive of Development West Coast.

This ranges from specialised new imported jumbo drills (with hydraulic booms) to a host of more run-of-the-mill diggers and dumpsters.

Following the thread of companies providing related services, it’s clear that the activity is feeding a lift in equipment sales and maintenance locally, especially in Greymouth where mechanical services for the region are centred.

But the related work is also spread further afield. John Taylor, co-owner of Canterbury-based Burnside Contractors, is in the thick of the heavy haulage boom, while Alton Drilling, currently deployed by Rua, is headquartered in Waihi.

Tony Lyons, founder and shareholder of Westport-based drillers Ecodrilling, also working for Rua, said business in 2025 has “doubled or tripled on last year”.

He said coal and work for BT Mining and Bathurst Resources had always been the company’s bread and butter, but in the last year the work had been split 50-50 between the coal miners and the gold explorers.

Despite the boost many businesses describe, the official economic picture on the West Coast remains considerably darker.

In the year to October, Stats NZ said jobs in the region increased 0.8%, representing net job creation of just 128 jobs (for a total of 15,216).

The performance was better than the country as a whole, which lost 0.5% of jobs, 3578 positions, but it was hardly stellar.

In a similar vein, GDP in the year to September fell 0.5% on the West Coast. The decline was in line with the recessionary New Zealand economy as a whole.

Part of the reason lies with another mainstay of the West Coast economy, coal mining. The price of metallurgical coal produced at the Stockton Mine (New Zealand’s largest opencast mine) weakened through much of the year and its route to market was also throttled by repair work on the Tawhai rail tunnel near Reefton.

In addition, tourism spending and retail trade both lost ground.

Development West Coast’s Heath Milne calls the boom a “minerals renaissance” and it’s important to note that mining on the coast encompasses much more than gold.

Coal has long been a mainstay; an expansion and extension of the life of the Stockton Mine, through the Buller Plateaux Continuation project, is listed in the Government’s Fast-Track Act, though an application has not yet been submitted by proponent Bathurst Resources.

In addition, several other miners are planning a new generation of operations to dig up so-called critical minerals, many of them with industrial applications significant for new technologies such as batteries.

Tāiko, which plans to list on the NZX next year, is one such player. Another is Westland Mineral Sands which has a small-scale surface operation near Westport, mining garnets, ilmenite and rare earth minerals.

The company exports a mineral concentrate from its pilot processing plant and has significant expansion plans for the Hokitika area down the coast.

Also attracting interest is the antimony that Rua expects to mine in conjunction with gold. Last year, Siren Gold’s managing director, Victor Rajasooriar, caused a minor stir in New Zealand when he estimated that the Reefton area could hold up to 5% of the world’s antimony. Siren was a previous exploration licence holder, and, through a deal last year, it’s now a significant Rua shareholder.

Antimony is a mineral used to harden alloys and as a fire retardant in conjunction with batteries.

“It has quite a few industrial uses and the main producer at the moment is China, so there’s some strategic importance there and that’s got governments interested in it,” Simon Delander, vice president of risk, stakeholder and regulatory affairs at Rua told the Herald.

At the moment, however, it still plays second fiddle; for Rua and Delander the soaring price of gold means the commodity is “still the main event”.