About 20 percent of the salaried employees at the Pinto Valley Mine near Miami, Ariz. are losing their jobs. Officials with Capstone Mining, the company that owns the mine, said the layoffs are not a response to falling copper prices.
Manuel Estrada, the mine’s general manager, said the move was part of a company reorganization after Capstone bought the mine from BHP Billiton in 2013.
"We had some redundancy, we had some things that needed to be reviewed and redone and so that was the approach," Estrada said.
Estrada added there are no layoffs planned for hourly employees.
