Jobs

Mining giant, Rio Tinto (ASX:RIO) is cutting jobs at Coal & Allied Industries division.

• An unspecified number of jobs will be cut from the division.
• Rio Tinto owns a 80 percent stake in Coal & Allied, with 20 percent owned by Japan's Mitsubishi Corp.
• Coal & Allied has a production of about 30 million tonnes of coal annually. The company employs about 1500 people across its three mining operations in the Hunter Valley region of New South Wales.

Hundreds of jobs could be lost as the Macquarie Group, (ASX:MQG) faces a weak investment market. For the first time since early 2009, Macquarie shares dropped below $30 last week and prompted a Citigroup analyst to recommend workforce cuts.

Macquarie wages have recently fallen below international averages and staff had already been lost to Asian companies with more lucrative offers, according to chief executive Nicholas Moore.

Following its successful $11 billion demerger of Treasury Wine Estates, Foster's (ASX:FGL) will cut 50 redundant jobs from its Abbotsford brewery plant, as part of its efficiency improvement program.

Telstra (ASX:TLS) has retrenched 30 senior executives last night and is planning to be retrenching another 300 senior managers in the coming weeks. Telstra's job rationalisation program is part of Chief Executive David Thodey's plan to remove bureaucracy to simplify its business processes and better serve Telstra customers.

One of the leading coal seam gas producers QGC, formerly know as Queensland Gas Company (QGC), which primarily focuses on exploration, production and supply of onshore gas have declared that it will spend more than $US3 billion on its liquefied natural gas (LNG) operation at Curtis Land, Queensland. QGC will invest the money in the project in next six months.

Alcoa (AAI), the third largest producer of aluminium followed by Rio Tinto (RIO), Alcan and Rusal has announced that it will reduce its global workforce by 13%, or about 13,500 positions, by the end of this year through targeted job cuts, curtailments and plant closures and consolidations. The company also said it will eliminate an additional 1,700 contractor jobs and that it has instituted a global salary and hiring freeze.