Newcrest said the jobs had been cut mostly from its Melbourne and Brisbane offices, and the workers involved had already left the business. In the wake of the plunge, Newcrest shares slumped as low as $15.89 last week, but have since clawed back some of the losses. The stock was down 10 cents, or 0.6 per cent, at $16.91 in early trade today. The gold price has recovered to be $US1425 per ounce, but is still low enough to threaten some mines, including some owned by Newcrest. In a statement released to the ASX this morning, Newcrest said operating and capital costs remained high in the gold sector. "The recent decline in commodity prices has not been accompanied by a reduction in the strength of the Australian dollar and Papua New Guinea kina," the company said. With its major projects ramping up and the more challenging external environment, Newcrest continues to review all of its business activities, particularly those related to higher cost current or future production. The company is focused on creating a strong return from our major investments in expanded lower cost production sources and generating free cashflow. Hidden Valley is one of Newcrest's smaller mines, and happily for the Melbourne-based company it has much larger mines that operate at the lower end of the cost spectrum. The Cadia Valley operations in New South Wales produced at $399 per ounce in the March quarter, and a recent expansion at Cadia East has progressed relatively smoothly. Newcrest said the cost of production was likely to fall further as the new Cadia East operations ramp up to forecast capacity. Numerous other gold miners are reporting their March quarter results today, including Evolution Mining, St Barbara, Beadell Resources as well as copper and gold miner PanAust.