As you celebrate and have a feast this Christmas, spare a thought for the families of 30, 000 men and women who lost their jobs this year. This year, 2023, will go down in history as the worst year ever after more than 30,000 people lost their jobs due to load shedding and power cuts. Load shedding has affected the lives of the poor from Arcelor Mittal South Africa, Sibanye Stillwater, Volkswagen to mention a few. Economists predicted earlier this year that South Africa's mining industry was going to retrench thousands of people to stay afloat.

Labour unions have condemned and vowed to fight because it would relegate breadwinners to unemployment lines. Numsa General Secretary, Irvin Jim, has criticised the administration of President Cyril Ramaphosa, accusing him of being remotely controlled in Europe."Since 2018 the South African economy has been facing what we have termed as economic sabotage by the state. There has been a massive rollout of load shedding which has caused the massive de-industrialisation in the country. The current seating administration has been busy pushing for green energy which we find strange because the country's muscle is with coal. South Africa has been surviving with coal for years and all of a sudden people started adopting the green energy concept and shut down many important coal manufacturing facilities," he said. Jim emphasised that the country is in this situation due to the lack of coal supply and coal manufacturing facilities that were shut down costing the country trillions of Rands.

The deteriorating rail infrastructure operated by Transnet Freight Rail (TFR) preventing the movement of goods from mines to harbours for export due to load shedding, is another factor that is costing the country. In November, one of the biggest companies Arcelor Mittal South Africa announced it was entrenching an estimated 3500 workers including permanent and contract workers. In a statement, Arcelor Mittal South Africa CEO, Kobus Verster, said that despite these best efforts, the initiatives were unable to counteract the cumulative effect of a slowing economy and a difficult trading environment. He said the high transport and logistics costs, as well as escalating energy prices and load shedding, have added further pressure. "The ArcelorMittal South Africa board and management have reached this point after having exhausted all possible options. As difficult as these circumstances are, we must ensure that the business remains sustainable in the long term, in the interests of the company and its stakeholders. The remaining business, after the wind-down will be substantially more profitable and able to invest the appropriate capital in product development and available growth prospects," Verster said.

In October, Sibanye Stillwater CEO Neal Froneman said job cuts in platinum mining are unavoidable as prices continue to fall, requiring 'significant restructuring of the sector. "We certainly can't run unprofitable shafts and our cost structure is probably the lowest in the industry. So if we have loss-making shafts, of which we have a few, they will have to be closed, and I say this with all the sensitivities on potential job losses," said Froneman. Volkswagen's international passenger car CEO, Thomas Schaefer, caused a recent stir by saying South Africa must get its political and infrastructural act together or risk losing major foreign automotive investments.