Exxaro has earned a top 10 placing in the Sciences category of the annual Universum IDEAL™ Employer Rankings survey of South African students and young professionals.

Between July and October 2013, more than 33 000 students at South Africa's 23 accredited tertiary institutions were surveyed about their ideal employer, in addition to more than 10 000 young professionals. Employers were assessed in four broad categories; business, engineering, sciences and humanities.

Retha Piater, executive head for human resources at Exxaro, says the group is thrilled to have made 10th place in the sciences category of the Universum survey.

"We know innovation is a key success indicator for this market," says Piater, "and believe Exxaro's innovation and future resource extraction and technology development programmes may account for part of the positive rating. These programmes are responsible for the group's recent innovations such as our ultra high dense medium separation and AlloyStreamTM technologies. Our energy strategy resonates with young people who are definitely environmentally friendly, as it focuses on cleaner coal technologies such as underground coal gasification as well as independent power production, and renewable energies such as co-generation, wind and solar. It is these initiatives that earned Exxaro a Frost & Sullivan Global Research Platform Green Excellence in Technology Innovation in Mining award in 2013."

"In the main however," adds Piater, "I believe it is our dedication to empowering staff with the knowledge and skills they need that is so attractive to young people. Exxaro invests about 5,5% of total payroll on thousands of training and development interventions for employees every year, as well as on learnerships, bursaries and sponsorships. We employ double the average of women employed in South African mining and account for a sizable portion of all engineering learnerships with the MQA. We offer a comprehensive graduate (professionals-in-training) programme, which provides engineering graduates with exposure across numerous disciplines and fast-tracks them for development. And we pay for ongoing professional development and studies."

"For our relative size in the mining industry (1,4% of the industry labour force), and the general labour market in South Africa (0,04%), the result of surveys such as this are a great acknowledgement of Exxaro's commitment to excellence, to developing its employees, its innovation drive and our intention to exceed the requirements of the Mining Charter. It is especially significant considering the fact that we really only market the company to engineering students at a small number of tertiary institutions."

Ends

Note for editors

Exxaro Resources Limited (Exxaro) is one of the largest South African-based diversified resources groups, with interests in the coal, titanium dioxide, ferrous and energy commodities with current business interests in South Africa, Botswana, Republic of Congo, China and Australia. It is the second-largest coal producer in South Africa with current production of 40 million tonnes per annum. Exxaro is listed on the JSE Limited, where it is a constituent of the Top 40 and the Socially Responsible Investment (SRI) indices respectively. At 30 June 2013, Exxaro had assets of R44,4 billion and a market capitalisation of R52 billion (US$5 billion). In 2012, Exxaro was one of the top 10 mining companies globally to have delivered the highest total shareholder returns over a 10 year period.

Contact:Mzila Mthenjane
Executive Head: Strategy and Corporate Affairs
Email: Mzila.Mthenjane@exxaro.com
Tel + 27 12 307 7393
Fax + 27 86 532 5093
Mobile +27 83 417 6375

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