Question-and-Answer Session
[Inaudible Audience Question]
Francis R. McAllister
That statistic would be all mine employees not just the miners.
[Inaudible Audience Question]
Francis R. McAllister
That’s correct.
[Inaudible Audience Question]
Francis R. McAllister
Yes. Let me go back to my earlier comment, and I’m sure it’s very important for you to understand. It was a change in work schedule, which allowed somebody to come from Idaho and work for seven days and go back and be with his family for seven days.
We changed the work schedule because what we were doing was the attrition means they were leaving voluntarily, going to Idaho because the silver price is now $14 instead of $3 and they can get a good job in Idaho next to their families. So what they were doing is leaving us. So this wasn’t just nickel, this was ?I’m outta here guys, I’m going back to Idaho, I’m going back to Nevada where the gold price is $850 instead of $350.? they were leaving us to go back to their home areas.
[Unidentified Audience Participant]
Was that mainly in the Stillwater Mine?
Francis R. McAllister
No, every mine in the country has experienced the same.
[Unidentified Audience Participant – Inaudible Question]
Francis R. McAllister
Yes. That’s correct. So this is basically the Stillwater Mine where the schedule change took place. That’s correct. It was.
[Unidentified Audience Participant]
Seven and seven.
Francis R. McAllister
Yes.
[Unidentified Audience Participant]
So they got seven on and seven off.
Francis R. McAllister
That’s correct.
[Unidentified Audience Participant – Inaudible Question]
Francis R. McAllister
The Stillwater was where it hurt, definitely in 2007 that’s correct.
Operator
Your next question comes from Victor Flores - HSBC.
Victor Flores - HSBC
I wanted to ask you about the recycling business, I understand that because you have to buy spent catalysts which are going up in price, there is a cost input issue even as commodity prices are going up. But I thought I would, I would have expected to see margins in the recycling business perhaps go up a bit. They’ve actually been fairly flat. Can you spend a bit more time talking about what’s happening on that side of the business?
Francis R. McAllister
Sure, first of all you are correct; the margins are up a bit. I think the second thing is there are two things that are going on here, first of all the production; the number of recycled ounces in the first quarter was down a bit from what it was last year. Meaning that if you have production down and you have profitability up just a little bit your margins are up a little bit.
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