Communities and regions where mining occurs will be severely affected by the downturn in the Australian mining sector due to the global financial crisis. Mr Tom Murphy, Chief Executive Officer of the Western Research Institute (WRI) at Charles Sturt University at Bathurst, says that with the current contraction of the Chinese economy, the largest customer for Australia’s mineral resources, Australia will face increasing and probably prolonged reduction of revenue from mining. “Our studies indicate that mining jobs create economic multipliers of four to six in surrounding community economies, or more in some instances,” he said. “That means for each mining job lost you can have four to six other jobs lost in a community. This is because mine wages and local spending are so high. Other industries typically have multipliers of around two to three or even less, so mine jobs are very hard to replace.”