10 hours Ago By Adrian Rauso
Rio Tinto chief executive Jakob Stausholm has foreshadowed further job losses in Western Australia this year as gross profit margins at the miner’s key Pilbara iron ore operation get squeezed from both ends. The headcount of full-time workers in the mining giant’s WA division dropped 3 per cent for the year, equating to about 500 jobs. When asked if more heads would roll in 2025, Mr Stausholm said Rio “has the responsibility to optimise”.
“We never want to have kind of big job cuts, but everybody has the responsibility to optimise, be as effective as possible everywhere, so you will always have continuous adjustment,” he told The West Australian. “We don’t like to reduce, but our mindset is a mindset of continuous improvement.” Mr Stausholm said budget control in the Pilbara was now at the forefront after years of other priorities.
“When we took over Rio as a new team four years ago at the back end of Juukan Gorge we had to do a lot of repair work, we had to do much more maintenance,” he said. “Then coming out of COVID we had a lot of inflation, so unit costs were not our top priority to start off with but it increasingly has been. “Now that we’ve stabilised production we can increase productivity.
” His comments were echoed by chief financial Peter Cunningham, who told Rio’s investors earlier on Thursday morning “strict cost management” was being rolled out in WA. Read the full story on thewest.com.
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