The mining market naturally experiences cyclical ups and downs. However, the fluctuations in the exploration market always tend to be more pronounced than those in the mineral-products market. When supply falls short of demand for mineral products, geological exploration enters a bright spring. Now, as autumn winds begin to blow, geological survey units are once again keenly feeling the chill.

　　In 2015, the market capitalization of global junior exploration companies had shrunk by 80% to 90% compared to two years earlier. As the global mining industry entered a downturn and China’s economy underwent structural adjustments—shifting gears and slowing down—and as fiscal funds withdrew from competitive areas of geological exploration, these factors combined to cause a rapid economic decline and serious development challenges for geological survey institutions. Some geological survey units have even once again found themselves facing a survival crisis.

　　In our country, geological exploration institutions once boasted a “hundred bureaus, thousands of teams, and a million-strong workforce” across eight major departments. However, due to the sluggish pace of institutional reform in geological exploration over the past three decades, today, aside from roughly half of the retirees and a small number of employees who have already moved into enterprises, hundreds of thousands of people still remain within the public-sector system. Faced with the industry’s downward trend, when discussing reforms to the geological exploration system, people no longer talk about “wearing the hat of a public institution while taking the path of an enterprise.” Instead, they are now focusing on every possible means to preserve the public-institutional nature of geological exploration units and, as much as possible, steer them toward Category One and Category Two public-service roles.

　　This raises a question: Does the public-interest geological team really need so many people?

　　Public-interest geological teams, often referred to as geological survey institutes abroad, are tasked with collecting, preserving, processing, and disseminating fundamental geoscientific data using public funds allocated by the government. In addition to serving mineral exploration, these fundamental geoscientific data also support various aspects of the economy and people’s livelihoods—including environmental protection, prevention and control of geological hazards, and engineering construction—making them a public-service endeavor that benefits the entire society.

　　So, what is the typical size of these organizations? According to data analysis from geological survey institutions in several countries around the world, the number of geoscientists—comprising both professional technicians and management personnel—funded by taxpayers’ money correlates with a country’s land area and population. Taking into account the combined total of geoscientists employed by central government agencies and provincial (state or regional) geological survey institutes, the United States and India each have roughly 10,000 such employees. The U.S. Geological Survey also undertakes tasks such as earthquake monitoring and wildlife and plant conservation. In countries like Australia, Canada, and Brazil—whose land areas are roughly comparable to China’s—there are just over 1,000 geoscientists. Other countries typically have anywhere from dozens to a few hundred geoscientists.

　　The public-interest geological workforce is not a “holding pen” for institutional reform. The appropriate size of this workforce should be determined based on actual needs. First, the size of the workforce should be defined in accordance with the scope of geological survey activities and medium- to long-term planning. In other words, the workforce size should be dictated by the tasks at hand, rather than artificially creating tasks based on the current headcount in order to achieve full-load operation. Second, looking at the scale of geological survey institutions around the world, the size of the public-interest geological workforce should be determined by taking into account the country’s land area, population, and specific national conditions. The actual workforce size should not deviate significantly from these benchmarks—certainly not by an order of magnitude. Finally, geological survey institutes are responsible for “producing” fundamental geoscientific data; therefore, their efficiency in data production must reach internationally advanced levels, and their scale and efficiency must be commensurate with each other.

　　The "Decision of the CPC Central Committee on Several Major Issues Concerning Comprehensively Deepening Reform," adopted at the Third Plenary Session of the 18th Party Congress, has once again sounded the call for reforming the geological exploration system. However, precisely because the reform of the geological exploration system has been sluggish and halting for many years, we now find ourselves in today’s predicament. In this pivotal year of reform, if tens of thousands of people continue to strive for the status of public-interest teams and firmly defend the nature of their work, it will only lead to an overgrown workforce—a move that would be neither wise nor beneficial for the country, the people, nor the industry itself.