I haven’t seen anything about this on the Daily Press Web site or over at the Sun News (or maybe I just couldn’t find them) but the AP is reporting 600 layoffs at Chino:
Chino Mine in southwestern New Mexico will lay off three quarters of its employees early next year because of a sharp decline in copper prices.
Chino’s parent company, Freeport-McMoRan, announced Wednesday it plans to suspend mining and milling activities at Chino, but will continue reclamation activities and copper production from its SX-EW plant.
Man, that is not a good sign. More later…
Sonata
I heard Freeport Jakarta suddenly laid-off 75 people on 10th Dec 2008, incl. one pregnant woman who has been in excellent service for years. What is going on?
La Fleur
What is going on? What kind of a question is that? Simply the price of copper has dropped off big time. The company is trying to stay in Production with minimum operating costs. They must have done the analysis of head count cut before laying off people. Any jobs that can be done with less people or eliminated all together are the target! too bad for the pregnant woman, but the company has to make the decision that certainly bigger than to save an indivual employee. Welcome to the reality!