Billionaire Gina Rinehart’s flagship iron ore company, Hancock Iron Ore, has confirmed a wave of job cuts across its Pilbara operations in Western Australia, according to an ABC News report.
The mining giant declined to verify to ABC the exact number of personnel affected by the redundancies, but industry sources and initial media reports suggested between 150 and 500 positions could be axed. Experts estimate the cuts could represent up to 10 per cent of the company’s regional workforce.
According to a statement from the company, the layoffs follow the completion of its annual life of mine planning review, which focused on optimising mining, processing, and blending across its assets.
The structural shake-up comes roughly 12 months after Hancock merged its prominent Roy Hill and Atlas Iron divisions into a unified corporate entity, Hancock Iron Ore, which currently manages a combined output of over 70 million tonnes of iron ore per annum.
Hancock defended the operational pivot, stating the revised strategy successfully extends the lifespan of the flagship Roy Hill mine by a decade.
“We continuously look at optimising our mine plan,” a company spokesperson said.
“The latest iteration extends our life of mine by 10 years, maximising how much of the orebody we can turn into product and reduce the amount of waste we mine.”
The automated efficiencies mean the company will scale back raw mining activity at the Roy Hill site, though it expects total export throughput to remain steady above 63 million tonnes per annum.
Federal Resources Minister Madeleine King labelled the mass redundancies a “disappointing turn of events” for the resource sector, urging the billionaire-backed miner to ensure workers are supported.
“First and foremost my thoughts are with the workers and their families who will be affected by these job losses,” King said.
“We would expect that those workers do receive, and receive promptly, all the entitlements that they have earned.”
Hancock Iron Ore stated it would work closely with all affected staff to navigate the transitions.
