The mining sector and unions have poured cold water on Opposition Leader Tony Abbott's idea to scrap the dole for under-30s.

Mr Abbott says the Coalition is considering withdrawing the dole from some job seekers to push them into taking jobs in sectors where there are skills shortages, such as mining.

But some industry insiders say this could be a disaster.

Steven Smyth, from the Construction Forestry Mining and Energy Union, says it is not safe to push unskilled workers into the sort of mining work carried out by his members.

"To take people and say 'right, you can go and work in an underground coal mine or an open cut coal mine' without having the proper training, the skills and the competency I think would be disastrous and is something the union is not in favour of," he said.

"We'd push the opposite, that the people be high skilled, highly trained, and competent."

Queensland Resources Council director Michael Roche told ABC Radio that Mr Abbott seems misguided in his approach to addressing the skills shortage.

"If he thinks you can translate an unemployed young man or woman from Townsville or Cairns or wherever overnight into the resources sector, then clearly we need to give Mr Abbott a good briefing on the workforce's needs and the fact that we need skilled people that have done some training," he said.

Australian Workers Union national secretary Paul Howes has slammed Mr Abbott's idea as "stupid".

"This is crass politics at its worst. It's the type of thing we did hear from Pauline Hanson," he told Sky News.

"I think it's one of Tony Abbott's Sarah Palin moments.

"You can't just pluck any old Joe out of an area of chronic unemployment, dump them in a mine and think that that somehow is going to solve the skills shortage, because the shortage is about skills."

Kevin Wealand is chief executive of Downing Teal, a recruitment company specialising in finding workers for the mining industry.

He too says not just anyone can get a job in the mines.

"Labour has also got to be characterised as skilled labour," he said.

"So unskilled labour that is incapable or untrained in the use of heavy equipment, working in dangerous or remote environments, is unlikely to be easily employed.

"Mining is inherently a dangerous business ... to take anyone who's absolutely unskilled and say 'there's a job in the resource sector' would be contentious."

But Mr Wealand says the industry is facing a critical shortage of workers, which is only going to get worse.

"We're talking about the immediate term in the next decade, it seems to me there is unquestionably going to be a shortage of labour," he said.

"Depending on what the job is. Five years ago for every one job that was available, whether that be unskilled, semi-skilled, skilled or professional, five years ago we would have seen anywhere between 10 and 20 applicants.

"Today the chances are that there are one or two applicants."

He says there will always be employment opportunities in the mining sector Australia-wide for skilled workers.

The mayor of the Yarrabah Aboriginal Shire Council in far north Queensland, Percy Neal, says denying the dole to people under 30 would destroy his community.

"In our community it's bad enough as it is since the abolition of CDEP," he said.

"The present Government's actually taken it away, the work for the dole program, so if they want to take away the dole that's OK, but give us back the work for the dole program."