(Bloomberg) -- Sibanye Stillwater Ltd. said it will enter talks with labor unions about a proposed restructuring at some of its South African gold operations that could impact more than 4,000 people.

The announcement comes after the Johannesburg-listed miner already shed a similar number of workers across its gold and platinum-group metals assets since late last year. The latest talks about job losses relate to a loss-making shaft at the Beatrix mine and a plant at the Kloof project, Sibanye said in a statement Thursday.

As recently as February, Sibanye finalized the cutting of 2,600 roles within the company’s South African PGM operations, as the firm responded to a sharp slump in the prices of platinum, palladium and rhodium since the start of last year. In December, the company announced it had trimmed almost 1,500 jobs after restructuring a shaft at the Kloof mine.  

Sibanye – one of the biggest employers in South Africa – has diversified into PGMs and battery metals as it shifted away from its original dependence on three aging gold mines previously run by Gold Fields Ltd. The company reported a $2 billion loss last year, after taking a large impairment on the firm’s Stillwater palladium project in the US.

The latest measures could affect 3,107 employees and 915 contractors, according to the statement. “The objective of the consultation process is to, among others, consider alternative measures to minimise job losses while ensuring the long-term sustainability of the SA operations,” Sibanye said.

The prospect of additional job cuts comes as South Africa’s ruling African National Congress – battling high levels of unemployment – gears up for elections next month. Sibanye’s peers Anglo American Platinum Ltd. and Impala Platinum Holdings Ltd. either have pared back their workforces or are discussing doing so.

The shaft at the Beatrix project has been “unable to deliver planned production,” while the Kloof plant has not been receiving enough material following last year’s closure of a shaft at the mine, Sibanye said in the statement.

(Updates with details on Sibanye, consultations from third paragraph)

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