According to a Reuters report, Brazilian miner Vale will slash 1300 workers from its global iron ore operations while another 5500 employees will be placed on paid leave.

The job cuts and enforced leaves account for around 11% of the company's global work force of 62,000 workers with 20% of the layoffs expected to occur at Vale's iron ore mines at Minas Gerais in Brazil, the newswire said.

"We have a crisis of credit, a contraction in the economy, large reductions in stocks of primary material underway and demand is very weak," Vale's director of sales Fidel Blanco said during a recent visit to Paris.

Meantime, Freeport-McMoRan announced the possibility of further job cuts after the company announced last month that 800 jobs would be cut at its Western copper and molybdenum mines.

The major copper producer said it would also suspend operations at a New Mexico mine and cut production estimates through to 2010.

"We are responding aggressively to the current market conditions which have weakened dramatically in recent weeks," the company said in a statement.

The news comes as Rio Tinto may look to place some of its Pilbara iron ore operations in Western Australia on care and maintenance from December 22 to January 2.

A Rio spokesperson told AAP it may consider ''trimming operations'' at selected iron ore operations with the possibility that some mines will be placed on care and maintenance over the Christmas and New Year period.

The cutback at its operations is part of Rio's 10% reduction to its 2008 Pilbara iron ore shipment estimates as a result of falling demand from Chinese customers, the spokesperson said.

Shares in Rio have slipped $3.30 to $33.50 in morning trade.