BDLive reports that Anglo American’s plans to cut its workforce to nearly a third of the 135,000 people it employs are among the factors painting a gloomy picture of SA’s prospects of reducing its 26.7% unemployment rate.
Fitch subsidiary BMI Research said in a report titled ‘Mining Layoffs and Public Sector Constraints will Keep Unemployment High’, which was released on Friday, said besides job losses at Anglo and many other mining groups, many of the government jobs created over the past five years were not sustainable. With more than half of Anglo’s employees based in SA — about 72,000 people — BMI said its aim of cutting its total headcount from 135,000 to 50,000 over the next three years would hit the country hard. The report added that Anglo was far from the only mining firm faced with making layoffs in SA. Meantime, other segments of the economy are unlikely to be able to offset the job losses in the mining sector.
- Read this report in full at BDLive
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