HONG KONG  Rio Tinto, the mining company, said on Wednesday that it would cut 14,000 jobs and sharply reduce spending as demand for raw materials slows.

The company cited the “unprecedented rapidity and severity of the global economic downturn,” and said it was shedding 14,000 jobs, 8,500 of them contract positions. It will also cut capital expenditures next year by more than half. It said the measures would help to reduce operating costs by $2.5 billion a year by 2010. Rio Tinto has a work force of 112,000.

The announcement came just weeks after BHP Billiton, the world’s biggest mining company, walked away from a long battle to acquire Rio Tinto. BHP, faced with demands by European regulators that it sell significant assets to secure approval, abandoned the hostile $66 billion bid on Nov. 25, saying the turmoil in the financial markets and declining commodity prices made the transaction too risky.

Luc Pez, an analyst who covers metals and miners at Oddo & Compagnie in Paris, said the Rio Tinto announcement was “not very surprising, given the focus on reducing debt after BHP abandoned its offer.”