Episode summary
Rare Earth Talent Scramble Lures 86-Year-Old From Retirement | Bloomberg Businessweek
Bloomberg Businessweek Daily
· · Hosts: Carol Massar, Tim Stenovec, Lisa Mateo · Guests: Jacob Lorinc
Summary
The episode focuses on the US scramble to rebuild a domestic rare earths supply chain and the more basic problem underneath it: there are too few people who know how to run the plants. Jacob Lorinc says rare earth facilities are expensive, technically demanding, and harder to permit in the US than in many other countries, which makes both staffing and financing difficult.
He traces the talent shortage to decades of outsourcing, which hollowed out not only mines and processing capacity but also the pipeline of engineers, metallurgists, and teachers. By contrast, China has built a large rare earth workforce and even schools devoted to the field. Lorinc says the US has only a small number of accredited mining programs and is still trying to patch together training through university partnerships and federal funding.
The segment uses two profiles to show the extremes of the labor market: 86-year-old Jack Lifton, brought back from retirement because companies need his experience, and 24-year-old Neil Hogan, a new entrant attracted by the chance to work at a startup-like operation. Lorinc argues that the industry’s bottleneck is not just capital but talent, and that higher pay, more training, and sustained university support will be necessary if the US wants a real rare earth sector.
Key takeaways
- Jacob Lorinc says the US rare earth push is constrained as much by a labor shortage as by permits, capital, and plant complexity.
- He says decades of outsourcing left the US with very few people who know how to process rare earths or teach the subject.
- Lorinc says China dominates rare earth engineering talent and has schools specifically devoted to the field.
- He says mining engineers earn about $80,000 a year on average versus about $120,000 in petroleum, making recruitment harder.
- Lorinc says the US needs long-term university partnerships and worker training, not just money for plants.
Notable quotes
“the US outsourced this business decades ago and that means that along with the actual mines and the processing plants they also outsourced the talent”
“the biggest employer of rare earth engineers in the world are it's the people's republic of China”
“It's incredibly complicated and I I mean as if mining isn't complicated enough you know rare earths really”
“if you're looking for rare earth engineers in the US right now, check the cemeteries and then check assisted care”
“you can't just throw money at plants. You have to really invest in the people”
How the episode opens
Bloomberg Audio Studios podcasts, radio, news. — You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Masser and Tim Stenc on Bloomberg Radio.
This is a story we really wanted to bring to you. It's a great read. It's among the most read.
Um, we know the US is really trying to rebuild its domestic supply chain for rare earth elements. We know rare earth plants are complicated. They're expensive to build.
Especially in the US, it's different from what we see in some other parts of the world. In the US, you've got permitting uh timelines far longer than mining friendly countries uh that you see over in Asia and South America.
Yeah. And this is an interesting story because finding talent uh to run those this is 86-year-old former retiree Jack Lifton. They're bringing him kind of out of retirement um to do this. So, we want to go to Bloomberg's Jason Blur. Uh your Bloomberg News North American Metals mining reporter. You spoke to him for this story um on Bloomberg. I have to ask you first off, how did you find him?
Well, so interestingly, I I mean I speak to a lot of people in the rare earths business and uh a few of them had mentioned to me that there's an interesting trend going on, which is that uh companies are pulling people out of retirement to help on the engineering side. And there are actually a few firms that have employed people who are over 75, some of them over 80 like this guy Jack, uh who are now working. They're they've got plenty to do.
And so I was asking around, I was like, can you put me in touch with one of them? And eventually that led me to this guy.
From the episode’s captions: roughly the first two minutes, lightly cleaned. Keep watching on YouTube →
Topics
- rare earth supply chain
- workforce talent
- mining graduates
- industrial production
- u.s.-china competition
Watch the episode
Summary, takeaways and quote selection by Octagon. Quotes are short excerpts; the full conversation is in the episode.
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