ILUKA Resources will be cutting about 162 positions across its Western Australian operations over the next 14 months.
As a result it will cut about $25 million from its cost base over the next two years.
However, whether the job losses will result in union action against the mineral sands company is yet to be seen.
Its workforce is mostly on individual contracts but some award wage employees are union members – most with either the Australian Workers Union or the mining branch of the Construction Forestry Mining and Energy Union.
The staff to be cut include full-time and fixed-term employees and contractors.
The company is expecting the job reductions to trim about $16 million from its head office and WA operations in 2003 and a further $9 million in 2004.
About 115 of those positions will be made redundant and the remainder will cease to exist when existing contracts expire or through natural attrition or redeployment.
In terms of timing, Iluka expects to remove 113 positions by the end of 2003 and 76 of those will be through redundancies.
Another 49 positions – 39 of those will be through redundancies – will be cut during 2004.
The mineral sands miner told the Australian Stock Exchange the job cuts were identified in the review that was part of the third wave of performance improvement.
That wave is aimed at 50 per cent of the companies cost base.
As part of this wave the organisational structure and function of Iluka’s WA mineral sands operations and head office were reviewed with a view to improving business processes and systems and enhancing the performance of key assets.
Iluka spokesman Geoff Wedgwood said the jobs that were being cut were part of a process to remove duplication from the company’s operations.
“We sell into an international market and the rise of the Australian dollar has hurt us,” he said.
“At the same time our competitors aren’t sitting still.”
Mr Wedgwood said it was too early to tell whether the job cuts would spark industrial action at Iluka’s operations.
“We’ve met with the unions and discussed the program,” he said.
“We’ve told them that we weren’t just targeting awards wage workers. The jobs will be going from a range of areas including professional and administration people.”
Australian Workers Union assistant secretary Mike Llewellyn said the union had established the areas the jobs would go from and that 45 of them were from traditional award areas.
Iluka had already been in the process of offering voluntary redundancies to some of its workforce and Mr Llewellyn said the company had agreed to extend that time by another two weeks.