By Chris Becker
The long held story with mainstream analysis is that the transition from capex to opex (building mines to operating mines) will have a small indent on mining employment, and that those specialist construction workers will be easily placed in the economy, since there are:
A. so many mines to run; and
B. prices will stay high for a long time.
It’s not taking long for this delusion to be swept aside as history repeats: as prices come down, marginal mine production is curtailed or shut down – even amongst the big players like BHP and RIO, let alone more junior operators.
Following its admission it “over-invested” in iron ore, BHP Billiton yesterday announced further iron ore cuts, to the tune of 170 jobs:
The company has confirmed some of the redundancies will be from its Mount Whaleback operation in the Pilbara.
In a statement, the company said it would undertake every effort to redeploy staff where possible.
BHP said it was part of its plan to continue sustainable growth, whilst reducing company costs.
The company said it regularly undertook efficiency reviews, looking at the size and structure of its workforce in relation to its productivity.
Spin aside, that’s a fair whack of very high paying jobs, as well as lots of mortgages on the line. And that’s almost 300 jobs lost in the last 2 weeks alone.
How many more are to come?