{"id":36229,"date":"2026-06-04T11:45:28","date_gmt":"2026-06-04T09:45:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/?post_type=news&p=36229"},"modified":"2026-06-04T11:45:28","modified_gmt":"2026-06-04T09:45:28","slug":"china-backed-wesizwes-sa-platinum-project-to-cut-70-of-workforce","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/news\/china-backed-wesizwes-sa-platinum-project-to-cut-70-of-workforce\/","title":{"rendered":"China backed Wesizwe’s SA platinum project to cut 70% of workforce"},"content":{"rendered":"
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South Africa’s (SA) Wesizwe Platinum will lay off nearly 500 workers, or around 70% of the workforce, at its Bakubung mine in \u200bSA, it said on Thursday, as it shifts from \u200cphased development of the delayed project to a single-stage ramp up.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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While SA accounts for more than 70% of the global supply of the \u200bmetal used in autocatalysts that reduce vehicle exhaust emissions, \u200bnew platinum projects like Bakubung are increasingly rare.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Platinum miners \u2060are apprehensive about expanding production as the industry faces a long-term \u200bthreat from electric vehicles, which do not require autocatalyst metals.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Chinese-backed Wesizwe \u200bis abandoning its original plan for a phased ramp-up for Bakubung that would have started with 1\u202f million metric tons of annual production.<\/p>\n

The project, which \u200bhas been in development for around 15 years, will now \u200bfollow a single-stage ramp-up to 3.5 million tons per year, Wesizwe said in \u200ca \u2060statement.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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“This revised strategy will necessitate a reduction in the number of employees required to establish and sustain the production profile contemplated in the updated business plan,” the company said.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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“The proposed restructuring is \u200bexpected to affect \u200bapproximately 497 employees \u2060across various staff levels and disciplines throughout the business,” it added.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Wesizwe, whose anchor shareholder is China and Africa \u200bJinchuan Investment, said maintaining the current headcount of \u200b706 \u2060employees would not be sustainable.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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–Reuters–<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":21134,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"news-type":[44],"class_list":["post-36229","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-finance","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"","published_date":"","news_description":"SA Wesizwe Platinum will lay off nearly 500 workers","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/36229","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/36229\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":36231,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/36229\/revisions\/36231"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21134"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36229"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=36229"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}