  | |
| |
 |
|
| ||
Job cuts sweep through SA Posted: Mon, 01 Dec 2008 [miningmx.com] -- THE first formal shots were fired with Lonmin's announcement to unions last week that it planned to retrench thousands of workers at Marikana, but a fresh wave of labour cuts has already begun to ripple through the economy. Lonmin's announcement is the first visible sign of large-scale labour cut-backs, but in Statistics South Africa's quarterly labour force survey it was evident that the mining industry had shrunk by 32 000 jobs in the third quarter. In the 1990s South Africa became accustomed to large-scale job cuts - if one can actually become accustomed to that. These began in 1996 when more than 60 000 workers in gold mines received less than two weeks' notice of dismissal. But, since 2004, when the provisional liquidation of two gold mines - Buffelsfontein and Hartbeesfontein near to Klerksdorp, was averted - large-scale job losses became an anomaly. In the next 18 months to two years they will again become fairly common as a direct consequence of the global economic crisis. Research compiled by Paul Joubert of the Solidarity trade union's research institution sums it up well. "The global economy is moving in more or less the following cycle: developing countries are producing for China and, in turn, China is producing for the US and Europe. "If demand in the US and the EU declines Chinese demand for the resources of the developing world, especially metals, will consequently fall. "The weaker rand can to some extent hedge South Africans exporters, but not entirely. Figures from January to August show that South Africa's manufacturing sector grew by only 0.4%, whereas economists expected 3% in the wake of the rand's depreciation," says Joubert. Click Here to subscribe to our daily newsletter
| |||||||||
0% 
