Mining effects felt most in Yk
Det'on Cho Logistics lands passenger service contract with Diavik
Walter Strong
Northern News Services
Published Wednesday, March 19, 2014
SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
Diavik Diamond Mines Inc. has entered into a partnership agreement with Det'on Cho Logistics to provide twice-weekly passenger service between Edmonton and the Diavik mine site about 300 km northeast of Yellowknife, in partnership with Summit Air and First Air.
Pictured are gem-quality natural rough diamonds mined by Diavik Diamond Mines. As the number of Yellowknifers directly employed by mining and related industries grows, diamonds are becoming more and more the city's best friend, after government. - photo courtesy of Diavik Diamond Mines Inc. |
"It's a partnership that helps our business grow and solidifies further our (current) partnerships," said Stu Impett, Det'on Cho Logistics vice president of operations.
"It's very significant."
Det'on Cho Logistics employs about 20 people in Yellowknife. The company was established in 2009 by Det'on Cho Corporation and Impett, said company President Matt Mossman. Det'on Cho Logistics recently expanded with a Vancouver hub, and provides logistics, freight-forwarding, cargo-handling, customs brokerage and passenger service, primarily to Northern customers.
"We'll move stuff to anywhere, but we focus on our Northern clients to get anything from anywhere in the world to their sites," Impett said.
This contract with Det'on Cho Logistics is in keeping with a pattern identified recently by the City of Yellowknife in its 2014-2019 Economic Development Strategy background report.
Natural resource work, related in particular to mining activity and related support industry work related to mining, are taking on an expanding role in Yellowknife's local economy.
Although the fly-in-fly-out population still represents wages leaving the NWT, the percentage of mining or natural resource industry employees who live in Yellowknife has grown substantially since 2006.
Of its 997-person mine site workforce - which includes Diavik Mine Inc. employees, as well as the employees of mine site contractors - Diavik reports that approximately 35 per cent live in Yellowknife.
The city remains primarily a government town, with 24 per cent of the population directly employed by government - the number climbs to 42 per cent if including all levels of government as well as health, education and defence - and the concentration of natural resource sector employees in Yellowknife has been growing at the expense of the rest of the NWT.
According to the most recent statistics found in the 2011 Canada National Household Survey, 7.7 per cent of the city's population is directly employed in mining, quarrying or oil and gas exploration.
That's a 10.9 per cent increase over 2006 in the concentration of Yellowknifers directly employed by non-renewable resource industry.
The rest of the NWT saw an 8.8 per cent decline over the same time.
Transportation and warehousing operations related to mining are also seeing a growing concentration in Yellowknife.
More than nine per cent of Yellowknife's population is employed in the transportation and warehousing industry, which, as a category, would include employers like Det'on Cho Logistics.
This is up five per cent, again at the expense of the greater NWT, which saw an almost eight per cent decrease in the portion of residents employed in the industry.
"Overall, it appears that Yellowknife is increasing its share of employment across sectors in the NWT, while also capturing a greater share of the direct and indirect employment related to the territory's mining industry," the city's report stated.
