The world's biggest miner, BHP Billiton, said Wednesday it would cut about 6,000 jobs because of the global economic downturn and weakening demand for its products. "These are very serious types of decisions and we don't take them lightly, but at the end they are necessary and they are the correct decisions," said chief financial officer Alex Vanselow.
The cuts represent about six percent of the Anglo-Australian miner's global workforce of 41,000 employees and 60,000 contractors. They include 3,400 jobs in Australia mostly in coal and nickel production, 2,000 base metals jobs in Chile and 550 positions at the Pinto Valley copper mine in the United States, Vanselow told reporters in a conference call.