Cost of a Crisis: Thousands of Jobs Lost at Diamond Mines

There have been job losses before in diamond mining, but not on the scale we're seeing today.

Tens of thousands of workers were retrenched between 2004 and 2008 in Namaqualand, South Africa, but that was in response to a very particular situation.

The government had appointed itself as custodian of all mineral resources and brought in a raft of new rules that made many mining operations impossibly complicated and expensive.

There were also layoffs, largely temporary, in Botswana and Canada, when the financial crisis of 2008-9 hit.

But what we're experiencing at the moment, in terms of widespread job losses, is unprecedented, certainly in the current millennium.

Gem Diamonds said a couple of weeks ago that it may have to lay off 250 employees - about a fifth of its workforce - as revenue, prices and sales volumes all decline.

Burgundy has just laid off over 300 workers at its Ekati Mine, in Canada, after suspending some of its open-pit operations because of "sub-economic" diamond prices.

Workers only learned of the job losses when their rotation flights to the remote mine were canceled three weeks ago, ahead of the official announcement.

Also last month, the state-controlled Zimbabwe Consolidated Diamond Company (ZCDC) announced hundreds of job losses, primarily at its Chiadzwa and Chimanimani mines.

There are conflicting reports on numbers: local media say 200, a company source says 400 and the union says 600.

The layoffs are part of cost-cutting measures aimed at keeping the company afloat.

In May 2025 Botswana's President Duma Boko said Debswana (his government's joint venture with De Beers) was planning to shed a fifth of its workforce - around 1,000 employees - because of ongoing weak demand. The move follows 500 voluntary separations earlier in the year.

Also in May, Koidu Limited, Sierra Leone's largest diamond producer, halted all mining operations and laid off over 1,000 workers after a prolonged labor dispute involving wage disputes, poor working conditions, and market downturns.

In March, Petra Diamonds announced the loss of almost 500 jobs at its Cullinan and Finsch mines in South Africa.

Petra said the retrenchment was "an unfortunate and difficult decision," and that it had explored every possible alternative to the job losses.

And then there's Alrosa, the state-run (sanctioned) Russian miner that controls almost a third of the world's diamond production.

Last November the company said that in response to a "deep crisis" in the industry it was mothballing mines, cutting production and would be seeking to save 10 per cent on labor costs. That equates to around 3,500 of its 35,000 employees.

These retrenchments are not, like Namaqualand, responses to a specific difficulty. They are a general, widespread and dramatic response to a desperate situation that shows few signs of improving.

We've identified above almost 6,500 job losses, all announced or implemented in the last eight months. And there's every possibility of further job losses in the coming weeks and months.

At the heart of the crisis lies a fundamental imbalance between supply and demand of natural diamonds. Mining diamonds is a lot of effort for relatively little reward - typically one carat per tonne. And it's becoming less and less profitable.

Mining companies are being forced to make drastic cost-cutting measures to protect their ever-shrinking profit margins. Or to mitigate increasing losses.

Have a fabulous weekend.