IAMGOLD prioritizes local employment wherever it operates. To achieve this, all of our operations have plans in place that identify, create and maximize employment opportunities for local populations.
Our Rosebel mine in Suriname recently launched #IAMLOCAL, a recruitment strategy to increase the proportion of employees hailing from communities located in the mine’s vicinity.
While the majority of employees at the Rosebel mine are already Surinamese (97%), our local HR team recently set out the ambitious goal of increasing the percentage of employees hailing from one of the mine’s eight Communities of Interests — from 26% to 35% over 2022.
“Communities of Interests are the communities that are the closest to us geographically. They are the communities with whom we have the strongest ties, and the communities who should benefit from our presence the most; and this starts with employment opportunities,” says Santoucha Schmidt, HR Lead – Talent at Rosebel.
The local HR team revisited the recruitment plan in place and left no stone unturned to improve it — clarifying procedures, processes and goals. With the assistance of the mine’s internal communications team, a local advertising campaign was also launched to reach local audiences. This ad campaign, which is still ongoing, features portraits of local employees, who proudly wears the IAMGOLD colours.
“We provide our local new hires with value-added training to advance their roles in our organization. If we are unable to find local individuals with the appropriate skills, we seek to expand our recruitment search to other districts in the country before looking internationally. This is a win-win,” says Santoucha.
Wherever we operate, IAMGOLD strives to bring tangible and long-term benefits to the host communities with work with. Along with employment opportunities, we provide directly or indirectly, we bring significant training, business and economic development opportunities during both the construction and operating phases of our mining activities.
