JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – Platinum miner Anglo American Platinum (Amplats) on Friday said it had halved the number of jobs to be shed as part of its R2.6-billion restructure.

CEO Chris Griffith said in a conference call to media that, through the uptake by 3 600 workers of several “retrenchment avoidance” measures, the number of employees to be retrenched over the next month had reduced to 3 300.

Amplats has scaled back the number of jobs affected by the restructure from the 14 000 envisaged in January, to 6 900 by August, following negotiations with key stakeholders and unions on its restructuring plans.

The company, which would issue one-month retrenchment notices on Monday, had redeployed 1 600 workers into vacancies across the group, approved 1 500 voluntary severance and early retirement packages and offered about 500 workers “other” opportunities, including further training and permanent care-and-maintenance positions at mothballed shafts.

"This is a difficult time for our employees and the company and we have made every possible effort to minimise the impact on employees and affected communities,” said Griffith.

The company continued to suffer bi-yearly negative cash outflow of R1-billion, Griffith pointed out, stressing the need to turn the operations around to “protect” 40 000 jobs and focus capital allocations accordingly to sustain the business.

“We will once again create employment, but to do that, we need to restructure, unlocking capital investments and grow the group sustainably.

“The industry is in real trouble. About half of the platinum industry is making a loss,” he added.

However, Liberum Capital pointed out that, ultimately, only 300 jobs would be lost as Amplats implements its social-impact mitigation plan.

The plan would provide 1 200 temporary jobs over the next six to nine months, as well as about 800 job opportunities and extended portable skills training as a R171-million social housing project, which would see 4 000 houses built, gets under way.

The plan also envisaged investments in agriculture and waste recycling projects, as well as supplier development programmes around the operations and labour sending areas, the company stated.