BusinessLive reports that the mining industry shed almost 50,000 jobs from 2012 to 2015, most of which were in the gold and platinum sectors, Statistics SA indicated in its Mining Industry 2015 report.  

Since 2015 job losses have continued in the sector, with preliminary figures from the Chamber of Mines showing that 457,698 people were employed in mining in 2016.  In the four years 2012 to 2015, average salaries and wages rose by 7.5% a year or 24%.  According to Stats SA, out of 490,146 people employed in mining in 2015, 198,951 were in the platinum group metals (PGM) sector.  Gold mining was the second-biggest employer, at 104,369, followed by coal mining at 97,952 employees.  In 2015, the average salary for workers in the iron-ore sector, which was the best-paid outside the mining services sector, was R38,490 a month.  The average salary paid in the PGM sector was R17,649 a month in 2015.

• Read this report by Charlotte Mathews in full at BusinessLive

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