FIFO Jobs in Perth

Why is Perth the box seat for FIFO and mining jobs in Australia?

WA has more FIFO work than any other state, and for WA mining that airport is almost always Perth: Perth to the Pilbara, Perth to the Goldfields, Perth to wherever the red dirt is.

If you're in Perth, that's a drive. You fly out, you do the swing (the block of days on site before you fly home), you fly back, and you're home the same day. That's the box seat, and most Perth residents don't appreciate it until they hear what the interstate workers go through.

Flying in from the east

One worker wrote online about his two-weeks-on, one-week-off roster out of Melbourne. After fourteen shifts he flew from site to Perth, caught the midnight flight home and landed at 6am, wrecked, so his first day home was a write-off. Coming back, he either slept on the Perth airport floor or paid for a motel to get five hours before the 5am flight to site. His week off was four and a half usable days, and the flights and motels were a cost nobody had warned him about.

That's why WA companies hire out of Perth. A delayed flight from Melbourne means a missed site charter, which means the person on site waiting to go home can't, which is a fatigue and rostering problem nobody wants. So they don't risk it.

Where do Perth FIFO workers fly to?

Perth's mine sites are remote because that's where the ore is, and the ore doesn't move to suit the commute.

Getting to site is rarely just the flight. A worker on a forum described a three-to-four-hour flight followed by a four-hour drive from Tom Price to Port Hedland, a travel day that nobody on site blinks at. Travel days are often unpaid or come out of your time off, so your days off shrink in practice, even from Perth.

Where should a FIFO worker live in Perth?

Close to the airport

Redcliffe, Belmont, Rivervale, Maylands and the suburbs along Tonkin Highway are ten to thirty minutes from the terminal, and that matters the first time you have a 4am flight. One bloke online called Mandurah a bit of a drive at 4am before your flight. Anyone who's done the freeway in the dark with a bag in the boot knows what he means.

The land trade-off

High wages plus wanting land equals building thirty-five kilometres or more from the city, on a block that used to be a paddock. Plenty of FIFO workers do it, and plenty discover the same thing afterwards: their mates all did the same but in opposite directions, and now nobody visits. You sit in front of the new barbecue on your week off wondering why the street is empty. The house solves the space problem and creates a loneliness one, and nobody mentions the second part at the display village.

The extreme: living in a van

A subculture of single FIFO workers has opted out of Perth rent altogether. Their gear goes into storage, and they live in a fitted-out van on their days off and shower at the beach. When it's time to fly, the van goes into the airport's long-term car park and they walk to the terminal.

Almost the whole wage goes to the goal. It was invented by people who looked at $600 a week for a place they sleep in six nights a month and asked why.

How do I get FIFO work or mining jobs in Perth, WA?

Labour hire agencies are companies that employ you and send you to whichever site needs people. Most first FIFO jobs come through one. The national agencies with Perth offices include Hays, Programmed, WorkPac, Chandler Macleod and Techforce; the Perth-based ones include Linkforce, Recruit West and Connect Resources. Register with several, because each one only has the jobs its own clients give it.

Ask about the roster before you take a role, not after. The same job can be advertised on three: one mining contractor's ad offered its service crew 14:7 (fourteen days on, seven off), 14:14 or 7:7 out of Perth. Admin and gold-mine roles run mostly 8:6, and camp hospitality mostly 2:1. And a few ads out of Perth are drive-in drive-out (you drive yourself to site) for people living in the Goldfields, which is worth knowing if you're south or east of the city.

Step by step, from Perth

1. Get your manual car licence off red P-plates, a police clearance and a White Card, which WA lets you do online (what else a first job needs). Every course asks for your USI (Unique Student Identifier), a free number you make online.
2. Add first aid, and heights or confined space for many roles, and keep the cards' numbers and expiry dates handy (where to do them in Perth).
3. Sign up with more than one labour hire agency, since each has only its own clients' jobs (the agencies).
4. Hand your résumé in on paper at the agencies' offices in Maddington, Kewdale or Malaga (walk in).
5. Start with the entry-level camp, trade assistant and driller's offsider jobs, and ask which roster it runs before you accept (what they pay).
6. Never pay an agency or anyone else to put you forward for a job (the fee rule).
7. Once you're offered the job, the employer books the medical and drug test and your seat on the charter.
8. On your first swing, expect a drive to Perth Airport before dawn, a charter north or east, and sometimes hours on the road after it (where you'll fly).

Walk in with your résumé

Here's the Perth-specific move. Print your résumé with your tickets at the top, each with its number and expiry date. Drive to the industrial suburbs where the agency offices actually are, not to a website.

Walk in. Hand it over. Say your name.

One worker's advice online was to forget SEEK, print some copies of your resume, and door-knock the industrial suburbs of Maddington, Kewdale and Malaga. He reckoned you'd have work within a day. That's not a promise, but it costs only a morning to try. The person who walks in gets remembered in a way an emailed PDF does not.

How much do FIFO workers make in Perth?

Only ads that stated a figure are in the table. Most don't.

The two usual ways in from Perth with no experience sit at opposite ends of that range: full-time camp utility work and a driller's offsider traineeship.

The pay is the same whether you live in Perth or not. What changes is what's left after you've paid to get here. A Perth worker keeps the whole wage minus the drive to the airport. An interstate worker pays flights, motels and lost days every swing before earning a cent on site.

To see what an ad really pays per trip, per year and per hour on shift, try the FIFO pay calculator.

What is FIFO culture like in Perth?

In Perth, FIFO is part of everyday life, not something unusual. At school pick-up, plenty of parents have a partner away on site, and in some suburbs many families live by a roster. A bloke at the hardware store on a Wednesday isn't taking a sick day: he's on his week off, and people in Perth know that without asking.

The culture has its own geography. The Redcliffe Tavern sits near the airport, where the workers come out. Go there on a Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday around 11am and talk to the people who've just flown in. They'll answer any question you have, for a beer, and the advice will be better than anything online, because it's current, it's about the site they just left, and they're not selling anything.

There's also a class divide worth naming, because you'll feel it. Some inner-city, university-educated Perth carries a visible disdain for FIFO workers: for the suburbs they live in, for the money they earn without a degree. It's a quiet friction that runs through the city. If you're a FIFO worker here and you've felt it, that's a documented pattern, not something wrong with you.

Is Perth a good city to FIFO from?

What Perth gives you

Perth gives you a commute measured in a car ride, not a red-eye, and a city where FIFO is normal, so the roster doesn't need explaining to anyone.

What Perth costs you

The rental market comes first. Vacancy rates have sat near record lows, and anyone arriving without a base, interstate or international, can spend weeks or months finding one. Moving to Perth for FIFO means sorting the room before the job, not after.

Then there's the sprawl, and the house thirty-five kilometres out with the empty street. The money buys the house. The roster empties the street.

Four honest questions

1. Are you Perth-based, or counting the cost of getting to Perth every swing? The difference is thousands of dollars a year and dozens of hours of sleep.
2. How far from the airport will you really be at 4am? The house in Mandurah is affordable. The drive in the dark to the terminal is the price, every swing.
3. How much of the week off does the commute leave you? Count from your front door to the site gate and back, not from the airport.
4. If you're moving here, have you got a base before you fly out? The answer can't be "I'll sort it when I land." The rental market doesn't care about your start date.