Up to 116 jobs to be cut in mines around Whyalla in Upper Spencer Gulf

ABC NEWS (Australia)

Up to 116 jobs are expected to go in mines near Whyalla in South Australia - the latest round of redundancies linked to steelworks operator GFG Alliance.

Transcript

00:00GFG Alliance says that with changes coming to the type of iron ore being extracted, fuel

00:07workers are needed for now.

00:09The company, which also owns the Wayala Steelworks, says that it's shifting away from hematite

00:15mining and shifting its focus towards a greener future to mining magnetite ore.

00:20But that means that up to 116 jobs will be shed by contractors from mid-October.

00:26And it follows a recent wave of job losses at the mine in May when 56 jobs were dropped

00:32and after 48 white-collar jobs were also axed just last month.

00:37The local Labor MP Eddie Hughes has criticised the move and he says that these job losses

00:42are going to deeply affect the community in and around Wayala and he says he's also concerned

00:47with how GFG is currently running its businesses.

00:50The blast furnace at the steelworks was offline for nearly four months earlier this year after

00:55it cooled down too much during maintenance work and that saw many of the 1,100 employees

01:00with up to 30% less pay until it became operational again in July.

01:06Just earlier this week the steelworks also announced that it will be cutting costs by

01:10reducing some of that maintenance work.

01:12And the size of some of the debts linked to GFG's upper Spencer Gulf businesses have also

01:17recently been raised under parliamentary privilege.

01:21In a statement to the ABC the company says that it's invested over a billion dollars

01:25into its Wayala operations since taking over the plant in 2017 but a spokesperson says

01:31that these changes are set to continue over the coming months so it could mean more uncertainty

01:36for those in Wayala.

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