Three companies have outlined plans in recent weeks to lay off more than 20,000 employees and shut mines, with the latest, Sibanye Gold, talking of illegal mining, poor productivity and the strong rand as the factors behind its plans to shed about 10,000 jobs.
The local mining industry has lost 70,000 jobs in the past five years, according to the Chamber of Mines. This puts into perspective recently announced job cuts by three companies, signals how distressed the industry is and just how fragile in light of a suspended Mining Charter which would introduce hefty new costs to it.
As it stood now, the revised charter would strip another 100,000 jobs out of a sector that employed 458,000 people in 2016, said the chamber. Gold mines are, by and large, old, deep and expensive to operate. AngloGold Ashanti has said it will cut up to 8,500 jobs as it stops its old and unprofitable Kopanang and Savuka mines. Atlatsa Resources and its partner Anglo American Platinum have said the unprofitable Bokoni mine will be stopped, with the loss of 5,000 jobs. Sibanye CEO Neal Froneman said the company could close its three Cooke shafts near Randfontein as well as its Beatrix West mine in the Free State, with 7,400 employees and 2,500 contractors losing their jobs. The headwinds of low productivity, illegal mining at Cooke and a lower rand gold price worked against efforts to save the mines, he said. The National Union of Mineworkers accused companies of resorting to "blackmail" with job cuts in a heated environment in which the chamber and the Department of Mineral Resources ...
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