NOC 2021 · 73402 · TEER 3
Drillers and blasters - surface mining, quarrying and construction
Unit group 73402 of the National Occupational Classification, 2021 Version 1.0.
Check which category draws this code qualifies for
What this group covers
Drillers and blasters in surface mining, quarrying and construction operate mobile drilling machines to bore blast holes in open-pit mines and quarries and to bore holes for blasting and for building foundations at construction sites. Blasters in this unit group fill blast holes with explosives and detonate explosives to dislodge coal, ore and rock or to demolish structures. They are employed by mining, quarrying and construction companies and by drilling and blasting contractors.
Example job titles
As Statistics Canada publishes them. Yours may be worded differently and still belong here.
- air-track drill operator - construction
- blaster - quarrying
- blaster - surface mining
- blaster (except underground mining)
- construction blaster
- construction driller
- core drill operator - construction, surface mining and quarrying
- diamond drill operator - surface mining and quarrying
- driller - quarrying
- driller - surface mine
- driller - surface mining
- drilling machine operator - construction
- foundation drill operator
- foundation drill operator - construction
- open-pit blaster
- open-pit driller
- quarry driller
- rotary drilling machine operator
- rotary drilling machine operator - surface mining and quarrying
- seismic prospecting driller
What it pays, and where it is hiring
Job Bank publishes a wage estimate and a three-year employment outlook for each occupation, region by region. Both are below as published — where an estimate is missing from the source it is missing here too, because the alternative is inventing one.
Across Canada
$37.50 an hour
Low $27.00, high $49.00
Where it pays most
- Thompson--Okanagan · British Columbia$42.00
- Laurentides · Quebec$40.00
- Saguenay--Lac-Saint-Jean · Quebec$40.00
- Lower Mainland · British Columbia$39.93
- Vancouver Island and Coast · British Columbia$39.86
Economic regions only. A province’s figure is an average over the regions inside it, so including one would rank a province above its own best region and read as a finding.
By province and territory
| Where | Median hourly | Low to high | Outlook 2025–2027 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Newfoundland and Labrador | $36.00 | $25.00 – $50.00 | Undetermined |
| Prince Edward Island | Not published | Not published | Undetermined |
| Nova Scotia | Not published | Not published | Undetermined |
| New Brunswick | Not published | Not published | Undetermined |
| Quebec | $39.82 | $28.00 – $47.00 | Very limited |
| Ontario | $35.00 | $26.00 – $47.28 | Moderate |
| Manitoba | $32.55 | $25.00 – $48.44 | Limited |
| Saskatchewan | $37.75 | $24.00 – $63.47 | Undetermined |
| Alberta | $38.00 | $27.00 – $50.15 | Limited |
| British Columbia | $40.00 | $31.60 – $50.14 | Limited |
| Yukon Territory | Not published | Not published | Undetermined |
| Northwest Territories | Not published | Not published | Undetermined |
| Nunavut | Not published | Not published | Undetermined |
By economic region
The 15 economic regions where Job Bank publishes a wage or a rated outlook, of 72.
| Where | Province | Median hourly | Low to high | Outlook 2025–2027 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Montérégie | Quebec | $38.01 | $26.83 – $45.00 | Limited |
| Laurentides | Quebec | $40.00 | $28.00 – $46.22 | Very limited |
| Abitibi-Témiscamingue | Quebec | $35.00 | $30.00 – $49.06 | Very limited |
| Saguenay--Lac-Saint-Jean | Quebec | $40.00 | $27.63 – $45.11 | Limited |
| Ottawa | Ontario | $35.00 | $26.00 – $47.28 | Undetermined |
| Toronto | Ontario | Not published | Not published | Moderate |
| Kitchener--Waterloo--Barrie | Ontario | $35.00 | $26.00 – $47.28 | Moderate |
| Hamilton--Niagara Peninsula | Ontario | $35.00 | $26.00 – $47.28 | Undetermined |
| Northeast | Ontario | $34.00 | $27.75 – $46.30 | Moderate |
| Winnipeg | Manitoba | $32.55 | $25.00 – $48.44 | Undetermined |
| Calgary | Alberta | $38.50 | $26.00 – $51.56 | Undetermined |
| Edmonton | Alberta | $38.00 | $27.00 – $50.15 | Undetermined |
| Vancouver Island and Coast | British Columbia | $39.86 | $34.00 – $51.00 | Limited |
| Lower Mainland | British Columbia | $39.93 | $27.50 – $47.71 | Limited |
| Thompson--Okanagan | British Columbia | $42.00 | $31.19 – $52.00 | Undetermined |
Job Bank rates employment prospects for each occupation in each economic region from very good to very limited over 2025–2027, and says “undetermined” where it has not got enough to rate. It is an assessment of prospects, not a count of vacancies.
The estimates on this page come from Employment Insurance Survey Data (2023-2024).
Job Bank publishes an estimate for 24,364 of the 44,376 occupation-and-place pairs in this release. The rest are suppressed rather than modelled, and appear here as not published.
Wage estimates from the 2025 Wages release, revised 19 November 2025; employment outlooks from 2025-2027 Employment Outlooks - NOC 2021, released 8 December 2025. Both are updated annually. Estimates for different regions come from different surveys, so comparing two regions is exactly as sound as Job Bank’s own regional comparison and no more.
Source: Statistics Canada — National Occupational Classification 2021 V1.0; Employment and Social Development Canada — Job Bank wages; Employment and Social Development Canada — Job Bank 3-year employment outlooks. Data current as of 13 August 2026. NOC 2021 Version 1.0. The classification is versioned rather than dated — IRCC moved to it in November 2022, and a new version would be a new classification rather than an update.