The nation's 130-year-old gold industry – which has produced half the bullion ever mined on earth – is locked in the final stages of a decades-long death spiral. Most of South Africa's gold mines are unprofitable at current prices.
Dwindling output has cut gold's contribution to little more than 1% of the South African economy, down from 3.8% in 1993 – the year before Nelson Mandela's African National Congress won the country's first democratic elections. While the industry's demise won't reverberate in the way it once would have, the mines minister has criticised Gold Fields Ltd.'s plan to cut jobs as the ruling ANC seeks to shore up its base before elections next year.