RIO chops hundreds in Pilbara

Advertisement

From the SMH:

Rio Tinto is poised to cut several hundred jobs from its iron ore division in Western Australia, weeks after iron ore boss Andrew Harding sent a memo to staff warning of a “degree of urgency” to quickly achieve deep cost cuts and maintain its mantle as the world’s lowest-cost exporter to China.

Further deep cost cuts at Rio have been well flagged, and the miner is putting the heat on high-cost players around the world by drilling its world-beating production costs even further down. It exited the December quarter with cash costs just under $US17 a tonne.

Rio declined to comment. But Fairfax Media understands several hundred jobs are set to be cut.

About the author
David Llewellyn-Smith is Chief Strategist at the MB Fund and MB Super. David is the founding publisher and editor of MacroBusiness and was the founding publisher and global economy editor of The Diplomat, the Asia Pacific’s leading geo-politics and economics portal. He is also a former gold trader and economic commentator at The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, the ABC and Business Spectator. He is the co-author of The Great Crash of 2008 with Ross Garnaut and was the editor of the second Garnaut Climate Change Review.