Leadership from Tyson Foods announced last week they would be shuttering one of the company’s pork plants in Perry, Iowa. It’s not great news for a town that is home to just over 7,800 people, however the shutdown comes after news of over ten similar closures that punctuated a year of record losses for the pork industry; in 2023, there was average loss for producers of about $32 per hog.
The same day Tyson made that announcement, the head of the company’s social efforts division, Garret Dolan, appeared in an article by Bloomberg with the headline “Tyson Is Hiring New York Immigrants for Jobs No One Else Wants.” The story details how companies like Tyson are struggling to fill what they characterize as “unpleasant jobs” with a US unemployment rate of 3.9%. As a result, the meatpacker is joining the nonprofit Tent Partnership for Refugees with a plan to hire some of the nearly 200,000 migrants who have come through New York City’s intake system over the past two years.
