Business
South Africa: Amplats scales back job layoffs from 14,000 to 5000 after gov’t pressure
Anglo American’s platinum arm, under pressure from South Africa’s government, could announce a restructuring plan as early as Thursday that will sharply scale back job losses as it tries to balance out cost cuts and the threat of labor unrest.
Anglo American Platinum (Amplats) had planned to slash 14,000 jobs to pull back to profit but industry sources have told reporters that the final plan would be pared back, with as few as 5,000 jobs cut.
Workers have signaled they will launch protest strikes even if the job cuts fall far short of the initial target.
For Amplats, reining in costs and cutting production to such an extent that it lifts the price of platinum, used for emissions-capping catalytic converters in automobiles, is absolutely crucial after it fell into a loss last year.
It is also vital to the fortunes of Amplats as it tries to turn around at a time when commodity prices are starting to slump.
Labor leaders, who closed mines in protest around the platinum belt city of Rustenburg for a day in January when the plans were first unveiled, have said even a scaled back proposal to cut 5,000 or so jobs would be seen as too many.
“Obviously, we will not allow this to happen. If they close one operation, we have vowed among ourselves that all of these operations must stop,” Evans Ramokga, an Amplats miner and activist associated with the Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (AMCU), told reporters by phone.
