Nearly 1,500 workers lose jobs in Australia

SYDNEY - Nearly 1,500 Forge Group workers have now lost their jobs after the collapse of the Western Australia-based mining services company, local media reported on Monday.

The job losses at Forge could go higher, according to receivers KordaMentha.

On Friday, 70 workers of the collapsed Forge Group were sacked after receivers KordaMentha failed to reach an agreement with Horizon Power, bringing the total number of retrenched workers from Forge's engineering operations to 1,470.

"They've been retrenched and they'll get their entitlements through the federal government scheme but it will take a few weeks to come through," Michael Smith from KordaMentha said.

Forge went into administration last week with around 500 million AU dollars ($451.6 million) in debts, local media reports said.

Smith says all of Forge's projects except Diamantina had stopped since Forge's financiers withdrew their support.

The first meeting of Forge's creditors is scheduled on February 21 in Perth in Western Australia.