The world's third-largest mining firm, Rio Tinto, is cutting 14,000 jobs as part of plans to reduce its debt by $10bn (£6.8bn) by the end of next year.
It also plans to defer some of its planned spending on exploration and combine its two London offices.
Rio Tinto, which is listed in the UK and Australia, currently employs 97,000 people worldwide.
It said it was responding to "the unprecedented rapidity and severity of the global economic downturn".
In the past few months, Rio Tinto has been fending off a takeover approach from rival BHP Billiton, which finally abandoned its offer in November.
Price moves
Rio Tinto said that closing one of its London offices would not necessarily lead to job cuts. Less than 2% of its workforce are based in the UK.
Those attempts by Rio to generate cash and thus reduce its massive borrowings of $39bn will cause disappointment and indeed hardship in many communities all over the world
"Their share price has been really slaughtered because of that debt and the BHP bid falling over," said Peter Chilton at Constellation Capital Management in Sydney.
"Probably the biggest issue is the net debt they have got."
Its net debt stands at almost $40bn, which will be more expensive to finance in future as a result of the credit crunch.
But there is some concern that cutting back on spending on exploration will hit growth prospects.
"This goes a long way to ensuring they have enough cash over the next two years to make their debt payments," said Glyn Lawcock at UBS in Sydney.
"The question now is which projects they have to give up. That will determine the growth prospects for the company and its relative attractiveness."
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