# What percentage of American miners work with coal? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [December 17, 2016, 11:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-percentage-of-american-miners-work-with-coal/774998 "2016-12-17T23:23:32Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![boffking](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/858c86/32.png) [@boffking](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/boffking)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2016, 11:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-percentage-of-american-miners-work-with-coal/774998/1 "2016-12-17T23:23:32Z")
Coal mining jobs have been a big political debate recently, but there are many other resources that are mined in the US. How many of the miners are actually looking for coal vs other minerals? What are the economic prospects for say, iron, or copper mining in the US? ---
**Author:** ![boffking](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/858c86/32.png) [@boffking](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/boffking)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2016, 1:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-percentage-of-american-miners-work-with-coal/774998/2 "2016-12-18T01:46:39Z")
Another related question: Coal is on a big decline due to natural gas. We keep hearing about the decline of coal jobs, but how many jobs have been created by the natural gas industry? Do they balance each other out? ---
**Author:** ![Bijou\_Drains](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bijou_drains/32/2814_2.png) [@Bijou\_Drains](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bijou_Drains)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2016, 4:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-percentage-of-american-miners-work-with-coal/774998/3 "2016-12-18T16:01:18Z")
a large percent of coal mining now is giant strip mines in western US , not underground. Same is true for copper. They don’t need as many people for that type of mining, they use giant machines. ---
**Author:** ![DSYoungEsq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/c6cbf5/32.png) [@DSYoungEsq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSYoungEsq)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2016, 4:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-percentage-of-american-miners-work-with-coal/774998/4 "2016-12-18T16:25:10Z")
Here is an article that details mining job losses as a whole as of the beginning of 2016: [Worst Year For US Mining Jobs Since 1986](http://www.mining.com/2015-one-of-the-worst-year-ever-for-us-mining-jobs/) So it would appear that mining jobs as a whole are an endangered species. And yes, a lot of that is due to surface strip mining taking over. ---
**Author:** ![Bijou\_Drains](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bijou_drains/32/2814_2.png) [@Bijou\_Drains](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bijou_Drains)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2016, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-percentage-of-american-miners-work-with-coal/774998/5 "2016-12-18T17:30:38Z")
the machines for strip mining are so big they are sent to the mine in pieces for final assembly. largest man made hole in the world is a copper mine in Utah [Bingham Canyon Mine - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bingham_Canyon_Mine) ---
**Author:** ![puddleglum](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puddleglum/32/137_2.png) [@puddleglum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puddleglum)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2016, 3:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-percentage-of-american-miners-work-with-coal/774998/6 "2016-12-19T15:59:34Z")
According to [this](http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/terence-p-jeffrey/us-has-lost-191000-mining-jobs-september-2014)article there are 661,600 total mining jobs and 56,600 coal mining jobs. That would make coal mining jobs 8.5% of the total.