Meadowbank mine to hire wranglers for its workers

Agnico-Eagle is now hiring wranglers to round up its workers after too many employees were missing their flights to the Meadowbank Gold Mine near Baker Lake, Nunavut.

Many of the mine's employees are flown to the job site from nearby Kivalliq region communities to work for weeks at a time.

But mine manager Dominique Girard said peoplemissing aretheir flights, and thatcosts the company money.Girard said last year, an average of 22 people were missing work each day.

"We're working more with the community to have someone there who will help us to contact them the day before they are leaving, and to pick them up at the home; to help with all the logistics," Girard said.

"It could be complicated in some communities, so we're working closely with them on that."

Girard said the company has already had success wrangling workers in Arviat and getting them to the airport on time.

Agnico-Eagle has had ongoing problems with attendance and employee turnover at Meadowbank, and the company said it's part of the reason costs are so high at the mine.

Earlier this year, Agnico-Eagle said Meadowbank would close in 2017, three years earlier than planned, due to a decision not to mine poorer grades of ore because of the high cost of production.