Thousands of mining and steel workers in Peru lost their jobs in December 2008, as the global financial crisis has seriously affected the price of minerals and drastically slowed down investments in the country.
While the country's labor ministry has calculated that 4,000 mining workers have lost their jobs, Peru's National Mining and Steelworkers Federation has reported that over 5,460 mining and steel industry employees have had to stop working since November.
According to the secretary-general of the National Federation of Mine and Steelworkers, the organization, which has a membership of 130,000, is planning to go on strike in February in protest against the layoffs.