Gabriel Resources to lay off a third of Romanian employees

Rosia Montana Gold Corporation, a company owned by Canadian group Gabriel Resources, which manages the gold mining project at Rosia Montana in Romania, will lay off 35% of its employees. The company took this decision because of “unjustifiably long” delays in the evaluation and authorization process for the gold mining project by the Romanian authorities. Rosia Montana Gold Corporation currently has some 100 employees, after it laid off 370 employees in April 2014. In February 2015, the company sent 70% of its employees in temporary unemployment. Gabriel Resources wanted to develop the largest gold mining exploitation in Romania, at Rosia Montana, but the project was blocked because it didn’t get all the necessary approvals from the Romanian authorities. The project also stirred much controversy due to the use of cyanide for gold extraction. editor@romania-insider.com