What if there was a mining contract system that worked between players. For example, I pay 1000 gold for a person who listed themselves as a miner offering to mine for me. Whenever they click, it basically works as me clicking with my stats and upgrades, except I'm paying someone to do it for me.

You could incorporate a system so that it checks whether the worker/player made say, 200 clicks, in the past week. If they do, they get paid, and if not, they don't receive gold and the gold (or most of it) is returned to the person who bought the worker.

Could be a way to help new players earn at the start and get other players more gold without them having to click a lot.