The push comes among a worsening skills shortage in Australia's west that has been exacerbated by strict coronavirus restrictions, which unions say have raised mental health risks for workers and their families.
Train driver Paul Bloxsom, who will leave Rio next month, said Western Australian border constraints to keep out Covid-19 that include a 14-day quarantine meant he had only seen his family in Queensland four times in 15 months.
"That's a challenge in itself, the isolation and the loneliness and so on. There was a combination of things, and I just had enough. And there's a lot more jobs going back at home on the east coast," he told Reuters.
Mine workers in Australia often live in cities and fly in and fly out (FIFO) to remote mine sites, a commute that can take anywhere from several hours to a day, including connections.
While miners in Western Australia are enjoying a commodity boom that has powered new construction projects, they are having to compete for workers with government-backed infrastructure projects on the other side of the country.
"Unlike previous construction-led growth periods for our sector, where up to 1,000 people a week were moving to Western Australia for work, there are now strong employment prospects in the eastern states," the state's Chamber of Minerals and Energy said last month.
