Barrick isn't alone in needing to gain control over costs through workforce reductions. Newmont Mining announced recently that it will eliminate a third of the positions in Colorado, and Australia's Newcrest Mining is closing its Brisbane office in a bid to reduce by 20% its overall spending costs following 150 layoffs that included its Melbourne offices earlier this year. Cliffs Natural Resources will also initiate a new round of summer layoffs affecting 350 workers at its iron ore operations, uranium miner Uranium One is letting go of 26 workers, and while Vedanta Resources had planned to layoff more than 2,000 miners at its Zambian Konkola copper mines, it thought better of it after the government threatened to seize its operations. Of course, this is having a ripple effect, leading Caterpillar to announce its own round of layoffs. Beginning today, 260 employees of the heavy-equipment manufacturer will be laid off for an indefinite period of time.