Australia First to Fall in ExxonMobil Job Cuts, an Industrial Info Market Brief

ExxonMobil announced this month a worldwide job-cut evaluation after pinpointing Australia to be the first in its cost-cutting measures to reduce workforce in the country's oldest refinery, Altona. Initially ExxonMobil said it had no plans for layoffs due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but based on its July 31 earnings, given diminished activity, the company had started looking at reductions "business by business and country by country." Currently, it is still unknown as to what percentage of its workforce would be cut, but Altona will consider all employees who expressed an interest in voluntary redundancy. Primarily owing to plunging crude prices and shrinking fuel demand, the company suffered their first back-to-back quarterly losses in at least 36 years, and has slashed capital spending by 30% this year and warned of deeper cuts in 2021.