FORGET construction, the mining industry is about to hand Gold Coast labourers a golden ticket all the way to the bank.

Queensland is about to challenge Western Australia as the country's mining epicentre with thousands of jobs in the pipeline following billionaire Gold Coast United boss Clive Palmer's $69 billion deal to export coal to China from the Galilee Basin region near Alpha, west of Emerald.

It is likely to herald a Gold Coast job exodus to the lucrative mines with the economic boom translating into 70,000 new mining positions across Australia in the next decade -- a projected growth of 76 per cent.

The coal deal will generate 7500 direct jobs and 60,000 indirect jobs alone.

The Gold Coast faces losing skilled tradespeople, many of whom have been without work in construction industry during tougher economic times.

But with those workers possessing the skills mining companies are screaming out for and the fly-in, fly-out nature of the work could mean a lucrative labour lifeline for these Coast tradies.

Mine workers can make more than $260,000 a year, have free accommodation and food and live in camps fitted with gyms, pools, tennis and basketball courts as well as entertainment including in-room Foxtel and cinemas.

Queensland Resources Council chief executive Michael Roche said the sunshine state's resources sector was entering a new era.

"Over the next five years we are going to see the greatest surge in industrial growth in regional Queensland's history," he said.

"Many of these resource sector jobs will mean that you can live in a region like the Gold Coast, commuting to somewhere like central Queensland for your rostered time on site."

There will also be a strong push for women, who remain under-represented in the mining workforce.

Louise Boucher, 26 of Mermaid Waters, is just one woman packing her bags to head into the mines for a six-month stint to earn serious cash.

Ms Boucher, who has previously worked in a Northern Territory gold mine, will head to north-west Western Australia within days to work four weeks on, one week off, as a heavy machinery operator.

"I'm doing it for the money so I can start my own cafe," she said.

"You get at least double the money you'd get here, and the other thing is you really have no opportunity to spend money while you are away because all the food and accommodation is paid for."

Ms Boucher's partner Ben Henry does stints in the mines in between racing as a professional motorcycle rider.

"Why would you go to work for $40 an hour in Perth when you can go to the mines and get paid $65 an hour and have food and accommodation paid for?" he said.