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.
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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.