Mozambique: Mining companies sack, suspend ‘at least 500’ workers in 2020

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Mozambique: Mining companies sack, suspend ‘at least 500’ workers in 2020

11:33 CAT | 13 Nov 2020

File photo: Lusa

At least 500 workers in Mozambique’s mining industry have lost their jobs or seen their employment contracts suspended due to the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, the director of the country’s National Mining Institute (INAMI), Adriano Sênvano, told Lusa on Friday.

The situation had, Sênvano said, shaken the sector nationwide, but affected with greater severity those provinces with the most mining activity, particularly in the centre and north of the country.

“The circulation and demand for mining products in the world has been reduced due to the Covid-19 pandemic, and that has thrown companies into a situation of inactivity that has had an impact on jobs,” he said.

Workers whose contracts have been suspended should be able to return to work if their employers resume operations, he noted.

Sênvano did not indicate how many mining jobs have escaped the effects of pandemic, but stressed that the sector “by its nature, does not employ intensive labour” and so employment is relatively low.

“It is not a sector that creates many jobs, but our goal is to protect each job, because income and the survival of families are at stake,” he said.

Sênvano also said that INAMI had between January and October this year revoked 145 mining licences for non-compliance with the regulations that must be observed to exercise the activity.

In the last five years, more than 2,000 licenses have been revoked due to such rules violations.

Source: Lusa