A planned layoff affecting hundreds of potash mine workers in Saskatchewan has been pushed back by one month.

The fertilizer company Agrium was set to let go of 380 employees at its potash mine in Vanscoy, about 25 kilometres southeast of Saskatoon, starting Tuesday.

Instead, the workers have been told to hold on and hope markets for fertilizer improve.

"We're hoping, like everybody, that the market turns around," Tom Diment, the Vanscoy mine's general manager, told CBC News on Tuesday. He said the future depends on farmers, and Agrium was optimistic they will be in a buying mood come spring.

"That means farmers buying potash and other fertilizers. We think that's going to happen. It's just a matter of when."

Diment said that while production has slowed, there has been maintenance work for employees to perform.

"Our plan is to continue to do that and hope that the market turns for the better here in the next month or so," he said.

All three of Saskatchewan's major potash companies have issued layoff notices since sales took a nosedive in the fall of 2008.

PotashCorp, also known as the Saskatchewan Potash Corporation, gave about 1,000 employees layoff notices, which began taking affect in mid-January. Since then, however, the company has said that about one-third have been working, some part-time, on maintenance and expansion projects.

The other large producer in the province, Mosaic, has mine layoffs potentially affecting 700 workers scheduled for mid-February. It says it is still determining how many workers it will sideline.