South Africa's National Union of Mineworkers saidAngloGold Ashanti Ltd. agreed to hold back on its planned job cuts in favor of redeploying most of the affected employees to other operations, while the rest will be reskilled, Reuters reported Jan. 24, citing NUM spokeswoman Livhuwani Mammburu.

The company was earlier reported to be in talks with South African unions over its plan to lay off 849 workers out of its 25,000 employees in the country due to "operational requirements."

AngloGold Ashanti, however, did not confirm that it reached an agreement on the layoffs but noted that talks are underway to mitigate the job losses. According to AngloGold spokesman Stewart Bailey, "[The] engagement is ongoing and it remains too early to preempt an outcome."