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South Africa's Amplats Says To Shed 4,800 Jobs
Miners walk at the end of their shift at the Anglo Platinum's Khuseleka shaft 1 mine in Rustenburg, northwest of Johannesburg, January 15, 2013. PHOTO BY REUTERS/Siphiwe Sibeko.
30/08/2013
JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - Anglo American Platinum, the world's top platinum producer, said on Friday it would shed around 4,800 jobs through its restructuring process, with 3,300 coming from lay-offs and the remainder from voluntary packages.
Amplats, which fell into a loss last year, initially wanted to cut 14,000 jobs in a bid to return to profit but fierce government and union resistance caused it to rein in its plans.
Job cuts are a sensitive issue in South Africa, where the unemployment rate is over 25 percent and after dozens of people were killed in violent labour unrest in the platinum industry.
Amplats, a unit of global mining house Anglo American, has laid out plans to cut around 7,000 jobs. In addition to the 4,800, the company said another 1,600 employees would be redeployed into vacancies.
It also said "approximately 500 other opportunities" would be found, but did not give further details.
"The success of these measures has further reduced the number of employees that will ultimately be retrenched to approximately 3,300 and the one month notice period for all affected employees will commence on 2 September 2013," it said in a statement.
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