Reuters reports that SA’s mines are cutting thousands of jobs and paying much less tax, so muddying the domestic economic outlook months away from the 29 May national and provincial elections.
The country’s biggest mining investors are halting plans to spend billions of rand on new projects in response to a slump in profits due to myriad local challenges and weakening prices of commodities such as platinum. The layoffs and investment cuts come against a backdrop of high unemployment and weak economic growth. A rally in recent years in the price of commodities such as palladium, rhodium, coal and iron ore helped companies such as Anglo American Platinum, Sibanye-Stillwater, Kumba Iron Ore and Exxaro Resources make windfall returns — allowing them to partly paper over domestic constraints including load-shedding, the crisis at Transnet and crime. But with prices plummeting since 2023, companies are in restructuring mode and cutting jobs. “The challenge is now just to be able to operate, to be able to produce on a continuous basis. Unless there is a fundamental change of policy and state capacity, we are going to end up with a marginal mining industry, providing marginal jobs,” commented Eunomix Research CEO Claude Baissac. The sector employs about 477,000 people. “Clearly, for as long as there is no immediate solution to the electricity crisis, and rail and port infrastructure challenges, we will continue to lose jobs,” said the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM)>
- Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Felix Njini & Nelson Banya at BusinessLive
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