The meatpacking industry has been going through a rough downsizing this year, and unfortunately it looks like the pain is set to continue.
As if losing several factories and thousands of jobs nationwide wasn’t enough…
Now the hits are coming to another company and plant – Hormel is cutting bacon production at its factory in Tucker, Georgia, and laying off 135 workers.
The layoffs begin October 26 and should be complete by November 8.
Hormel noted that the biggest issue is the plant equipment – it’s just too old, and upgrading it would be too expensive.
We’ve seen this issue play out in old factories nationwide. Take this particular Hormel plant as an example – it opened in 1969. Think about how many efficiency improvements have been invented for factories since then – technologies and production processes that this factory wasn’t designed to accommodate.
Upgrades are frequently expensive, jury-rigged, and don’t fully address the underlying footprint and design issues of the factory itself. Put it all together, and it’s frequently a better deal to just add capacity at a newer factory.
Plus, this is very much a year of efficiency across the meatpacking industry as producers face falling international and domestic demand, both sinking thanks to the trade war’s impacts.
Foreign markets have slapped retaliatory tariffs on all kinds of US products, and in many cases there have even been outright boycotts.
In response, US firms have trimmed production, with thousands of layoffs this year nationwide. As people lose their jobs – and others see it happening – domestic consumption falls as people start tightening their belts and cutting costs where they can.
Which, of course, could lead to more layoffs – especially among older, less efficient factories.
For example, the factory where Hormel is cutting bacon production? It employs a total of roughly 350 people, including 215 who aren’t impacted by the bacon shutdown. Hormel hasn’t announced any plans for additional layoffs – and we have no information indicating that more are incoming, to be clear – but of course if you know that a lot of your coworkers have just been laid off in the same building, you’re probably going to look at your paycheck a little differently. Now multiply that by dozens of plants all across the country where similar stories are playing out across the food and beverage industries and beyond…and you begin to see the scale of the economic difficulties that could be incoming.
Regardless, please join us in wishing these soon-to-be-unemployed workers well – it’s hard to lose your job any time, and losing it just before the holidays is awful. Leave a comment supporting these workers on this article!
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