Johannesburg - Anglo Platinum [JSE:AMS], the world's top
platinum producer, said on Friday it would shed around 4 800 jobs through its
restructuring process, with 3 300 coming from lay-offs and the remainder from
voluntary packages.
Amplats, which fell into a loss last year, initially wanted to
cut 14 000 jobs in a bid to return to profit but fierce government and union
resistance caused it to rein in its plans.
Job cuts are a sensitive issue in South Africa, where the
unemployment rate is over 25% and after dozens of people were killed in
violent labour unrest in the platinum industry.
Amplats, a unit of global mining house Anglo American [JSE:AGL], has
laid out plans to cut around 7 000 jobs. In addition to the 4 800, the company
said another 1 600 employees would be redeployed into vacancies.
It also said "approximately 500 other opportunities" would be
found, but did not give further details.
"The success of these measures has further reduced the number
of employees that will ultimately be retrenched to approximately 3 300 and the
one month notice period for all affected employees will commence on 2 September
2013," it said in a statement.