* Share price shoots up 17 pct, looks overbought at suchlevels
* Lonmin says over 5,000 now cut from headcount, mostvoluntary (Adds details, spokeswoman)
JOHANNESBURG, March 3 (Reuters) - South African-focusedplatinum producer Lonmin said on Thursday ithad trimmed its workforce by more than 5,000 in a restructuringtriggered by depressed prices.
There has been some confusion over the process after theAssociation of Mineworkers and Construction Union (AMCU) said onWednesday that only around 75 Lonmin jobs would be lost.
Lonmin said most of the workers had left on a voluntarybasis. This would have smoothed the process with AMCU, which hasled violent strikes at the platinum producer in the past,including a wildcat action in 2012 that led to the policekilling of 34 miners at Lonmin's Marikana mine.
The company's share price in Johannesburg was more than 20percent higher and almost 16 percent higher in London as clarityaround the restructuring emerged, but momentum indicatorstracked by analysts indicated the share was now deeplyoverbought and so its gains may be capped.
"Investors are viewing the streamlining of its business as agood step. It's also benefiting from a general rebound in themining sector and in platinum prices," said Richard Griffiths,associate director at London-based Berkeley Futures.
Lonmin spokeswoman Sue Vey said: "In total 5,108 have leftthe organisation - they took voluntary severance packages, earlyretirements or have resigned of their own accord."
"Another 75 are being retrenched this week as they were notwilling to accept the alternative options open to them -therefore a total of 5,183 people will have left Lonmin by 4March. Initially we thought we would have to lose 6,000 people."
She added that 1,388 employees had been re-skilled andredeployed elsewhere at Lonmin.
Job losses are a thorny issue in South Africa, where theunemployment rate is around 25 percent and income disparitiesremain glaring two decades after the end of apartheid rule.
AMCU's arch rival, the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM),said on Monday that more than 36,000 jobs could be lost in theembattled industry over the next three months, around 7 percentof the roughly 500,000-strong labour force. (Reporting by Ed Stoddard in Johannesburg and Sudip Kar-Guptain London; Editing by James Macharia)