The Illawarra coal miner revealed on Friday that 47 redundancy applications were accepted, with some requests knocked back due to the need for their skills.

Forced redundancies loom next as Gujarat seeks to cut 90 jobs, or 20% of the previous 450-strong workforce, according to its initial announcement almost six weeks ago.

“The company is now going to review possible restructuring and relocating the workforce over its two mines,” Gujarat said.

Jindal Steel’s Jasbir Singh, who has become Gujarat’s chairman and CEO since the Indian steelmaker invested more than $A110 million to keep the coal miner in business, said a lot of effort had been made over the past three months to continue operations and maximise employment.

“The market conditions are yet to improve and it is absolutely critical for the company to keep its cost down in order to be competitive,” Gujarat warned on Friday.

In the previous week Gujarat revealed it had finally paid all the owed wages and salaries that occurred over the troubled five-week period in September-October, although unions had since raised concerns over outstanding superannuation contributions.