Platinum-palladium developer Sibanye-Stillwater is wrapping up the layoff process at its mines and processing plant in Sweet Grass and Stillwater Counties, two months after management announced up to 700 people would lose their jobs.

Oryian Hewson dropped by the Stillwater County Civic Center in Columbus last Thursday to take a look at an unemployment assistance fair put on by the state. He lost his job as an underground driller at the East Boulder Mine just that morning, only months after he took it to move closer to his family and eight-year-old daughter.

“I just want to be home more. For my family. There’s a lot that I have missed out on traveling for work,” said Hewson.

Sibanye-Stillwater operates the nation’s biggest platinum and palladium mining operation in the country. Hewson is one of approximately 645 people who no longer work for the company since management announced mass layoffs in September.

Leadership said Sibanye-Stillwater hasn’t made profit in two years because of high costs, low palladium prices, and competition from Russia. Company representation says the layoff process started on November 12 in the form of exit interviews. United Steelworkers president Daniel Beluscak said workers met at the union hall in Columbus with company HR.

“For a lot of people, I think the closure is really all they wanted,” Beluscak said. “The exit interviews were fairly short, about a half hour apiece, and we had anywhere from 30 to 40 people in each one. And then they all had a chance to ask their questions.”

Beluscak said the company explained benefits, what their next paychecks would look like and the severance package.

Just down the street from the union hall, the Montana Department of Labor and Industry received many of those same people at a four-day event to help guide employees through state resources and unemployment benefits.

Barb Wagner oversees the agency’s job services division and says the goal here is to find people jobs that pay well and help them stay in their communities.

“That not only helps them and their families, it also helps the surrounding community because it helps replace that wage very, very quickly and in that way, we help prevent the economic losses from spreading to other industries and to other people in the community,” said Wagner.

According to the Montana Department of Labor and Industry, the layoffs represent around 13 percent of employment in Stillwater and Sweet Grass Counties.

Sibanye-Stillwater Vice President of Legal and External Affairs Heather McDowell said while the company is shuttering part of its underground mining for now, it intends to stay at its Montana operations through at least the 2050s.

“We have the workforce that we need to go forward with our smaller operations and then again those three things, getting our costs down, getting the price of palladium up and getting additional policy support happen, then we could incrementally bring people back,” said McDowell.

Some people have hope of returning to work for Sibanye-Stillwater, like Oryian Hewson, who says he would like to stay in the hardrock mining industry.

“I’ve been here my whole life. I love Montana, but for work I have done a lot of traveling. I’m getting to the point where I don’t want to do that anymore, but I will if I have to.”