Santiago (Platts)--26Nov2010/807 am EST/1307 GMT
Plans to thin the workforce of Chile's Codelco, the worlds largest copper producer, are advancing on target, CEO Diego Hernandez said Thursday. The state-owned mining company wants to cut staffing levels by around 10% through voluntary retirement before it embarks on a mammoth investment program. Codelco, which produces around 1.8 million mt/year of copper, plans to invest at least $15 billion over the next five years to prevent a sharp decline at its aging mine operations. Hernandez said that the terms of the plans have now been agreed with unions at all divisions with the number of workers accepting the plans meeting or exceeding expectations. At the company;s El Teniente division, 11% of the workforce has already accepted the terms on offer, compared with the company's target of 10%. "The workers see this as a benefit; so we don't think we will have to think about additional job cuts," Hernandez said. Earlier this week, national union leaders at Codelco and state oil firm ENAP promised to join forces to prevent imposed job cuts as both companies seek to cut costs. --Tom Azzopardi, newsdesk@platts.comSimilar stories appear in Metals Week. See more information at http://www.platts.com/Products/metalsweek