Slowing demand from China has cooled Australia’s mining boom, forcing mining companies to cut jobs as part of restructuring operations to reign in costs, Wall Street Journal reports.

Xstrata PLC, the world’s largest exporter of thermal coal, said Monday that it will cut around 600 jobs, including staff from its corporate headquarters in Sydney and consolidate three of its Queensland offices to one. “Although we are not breaking down the reductions by individual site, the restructure is focused on scaling back high cost of production at some of our mines,” the company said. Xstrata’s spokesman told the Journal that the cutbacks made by the company will gravely impact the Australia’s mining production.

This comes following similar steps by other Australian miners such as BHP Billiton Ltd. and Fortescue Metals Group Ltd. BHP announced it will shut down its Gregory coal mine saying that it was “no longer profitable in the current economic environment of falling prices, high costs and a strong Australian dollar”. BHP also said that it will review other assets.