BHP cuts head office jobs

BHP has begun shedding jobs as part of a major overhaul of its internal structure designed to streamline global operations.

Business News understands redundancies began rolling out in BHP’s head office today and more are expected in Perth and across its expansive WA operations in coming days.

The mining giant on Wednesday would not confirm if redundancies had already been offered, but said it was working through implications of the freshly announced restructure.

A suite of changes to the company’s internal structure were communicated to staff this week, with the view to simplifying its global operating model.

New teams within each division of the business – which includes Western Australian Iron Ore and Nickel West in WA – will be responsible for work related to environment, heritage, water, rehabilitation, studies and related planning and approvals.

Maintenance planning and scheduling and warehousing and logistics will also be moved to sit within the individual divisions of the global business, having previously been part of a global technical function team.

The full implications of any potential job losses or redundancies as a result of the moves, pitched to staff as a simplification of the organisation’s structure, is yet to be known.

But the changes come as murmurs of job losses emerge at the business.

Business News understands redundancies have been announced today at the company’s Eastern Ridge iron ore hub, and that Perth-based middle management have also been impacted.

No redundancies were confirmed by BHP.

A spokesperson for BHP told Business News the organisational changes taking place were designed to improve efficiencies within the company.

“As part of our continuous improvement in how we approach work, we have made some changes to better align work activities within assets and support quicker decision making,” they said.

The restructure comes as BHP pointed to disciplined cost control measures across its business when reporting half year results heavily reliant on the strength of its WA iron ore division.

The iron ore division drove it to underlying attributable profit to $US6.6 billion ($10.14 billion) during the half, though that was weighed down on a net level by significant impairments at Nickel West.

Nickel West is currently under review as a result of depressed nickel pricing which has severely hampered the local market.

BHP chief executive Mike Henry suggested on the release of half year results any decision around Nickel West’s future and the 3,000 staff working there would be months away.

There is no indication that a decision has been reached at Nickel West.

However, Kalgoorlie-Boulder council documents last week revealed the company had pushed pause on plans to build a mining camp for nickel workers in the region.