According to CBC.ca, the Diavik Diamond Mine is set to hire approximately 150 new workers over the next two years, as it moves from open-pit to underground mining. However, in the diamond mine’s quest to retain a workforce of northern origin, new workers coming from Southern Canada will have to pay their own travel costs, the company announced last week.

This new law will not affect existing diamond mine employees, who will continue to receive travel benefits.



"We've always supported a strong northern workforce and this is part of that overall commitment to the North," Diavik spokesman Doug Ashbury told CBC News.



Located about 300 kilometers northeast of Yellowknife, the Diavik diamond mine is a workplace to approximately 500 employees living in the Northwest Territories and western Nunavut, with 34% of them, aboriginal.



"This is a joint effort between our government and the diamond mining industry, and so we're doing a number of different initiatives to ensure that northerners and northern aboriginal people get jobs," commented Bob McLeod, N.W.T. Industry Minister.



In its bid to attract northern workers, the N.W.T. Mine Training Society plans to train another 36 northerners for entry-level diamond mining positions before March 2010.