Bad Times Are Coming...

This Thursday just gone the mine laid off 70 contractors and they have announced that in exactly 2wks another 100 full time employees will go.

That's 170 blokes with no job as of two weeks today. I had to stand there and watch their faces as they were told the news. The contractors were literally told to pack their gear and never come back, I saw one break down and cry. The rest simply looked gutted.

Maybe 50 of the jobs will go from guys who will take voluntary redundancy, they will all get hefty payouts, some up to $500,000. They were laughing and smiling at the announcement in anticipation of this. The rest, however will be the young guys that have given up well paid jobs elsewhere for a chance at entrance into the industry. They don't have the experience or the contacts to get jobs elsewhere and can look forward to years of job searching before something similar comes up. Not to mention that they will get a months wages and that's it.

It was really quite emotional standing there with guys that I've worked with for 6 months, seeing their lives go to shit in 5 minutes. Especially as my job is 100% safe and knowing that in a few years it could be me standing there giving them the same news. Some of the guys that will go have been so good to me, helping me with all sorts of stuff and yet when I'm flying back to the UK to resume my studies they will be unemployed with little hope of getting a new job.

These next three weeks are going to be pretty shitty, I just want to get them over and done with and get on that plane. As selfish as it is, I want to avoid the fallout from this announcement and pretend that everything will carry on as normal.