F3
FARM & RANCH
THE NORTH PLATTE TELEGRAPH
NOVEMBER 2021
Meat ‘sticker shock’ looms with no end to worker shortage
to get better at mar- keting their career opportunities, a hur- dle facing other fields that rely on blue collar workers. “It can be difficult to compete with some of the wages being of- fered, as well as the type of work,” said Young, who has been with the trade group since 2013. “Our indus- try can be hard work, but also rewarding as you are meeting the needs of feeding peo- ple. It is going to take a while to get people back to work.” Smithfield Foods, the world’s biggest pork producer, is pay- ing workers more, but also touting perks like $2,500 relocation pay- ments and Walmart
gift cards. Rival JBS SA is offering signing and retention bonus- es totaling $3,200. And it’s trying to lure peo- ple to job fairs with free lunch. “It’s been a chal- lenge,” said Jim Monroe, vice president of corporate affairs for Smithfield. Meat processors can also invest in au- tomation to boost productivity and re- duce labor, according to Glynn Tonsor, a pro- fessor of agricultural economics at Kansas State University. However, the industry has been pursuing this for years with little to show for it, he said. It’s also pushing for the federal government to expand work visas.
the holidays. Amazon alone aims to bring on 150,000 temps, a 50% in- crease from a year ago, at an average starting hourly wage of at least $18, which exceeds or matches a lot of meat processing jobs. The la- bor battle in retail has been intense for years, pushing chains to boost pay and add benefits such as parental leave and college reimburse- ment. Christopher Young, executive direc- tor for the American Association of Meat Processors, said there isn’t an easy answer. But the industry is working to establish butcher programs at colleges and intern- ships. He also said meatpackers need
exacerbated the hir- ing woes, while raising new concerns about how meatpack- ers will recruit in the long term. The in- dustry expected the labor shortage to get easier after extra un- employment benefits in COVID-19 relief end- ed in September, but it hasn’t. Across the overall job market, the number of people quit- ting is surging and job openings remain near all-time highs. Online postings for meat pro- cessing positions are up 66% from a year ago, according to Emsi Burning Glass, an ana- lytics firm. “Employers are go- ing to get increasingly desperate,” said Ron Hetrick, senior la- bor economist at Emsi Burning Glass. Meanwhile, retailers and shipping compa- nies are adding to the pressure with plans to hire hundreds of thou- sands of workers for
$3,000, but they’re still short workers and, as a result, there are an increasing number of sparse shelves. For America’s meat eaters, this is a prob- lem. Some cuts have soared 25% over the past year, while others are fetching near-re- cord prices, making meat one of the biggest contributors to pan- demic inflation. And industry experts expect meat to keep gaining through the holidays and beyond. “The sticker shock is what we all need to be prepared for,” said Bindiya Vakil, chief executive officer of sup- ply-chain consultant Resilinc. “This is here to stay, at least through the summer of 2022.” Before COVID-19, meat processors strug- gled to meet their labor needs, which increased the hiring of immi- grant workers mostly from Mexico. The pandemic only
tion, management, and cattle trade; both seed- stock and commercial. McCurry was raised in south central Kansas, where he grew up work- ing for his family’s cattle operation as a third-generation Angus breeder. McCurry and his wife, Pamela, live on their family’s oper- ation, McCurry Bros. Angus. The operation manages 500 Angus cows in addition to farming corn, soybeans, wheat, alfalfa and cot- ton. McCurry Bros. markets 150 Angus bulls private treaty each ANGUS from Page F2 By LESLIE PATTON and MICHAEL HIRTZER Bloomberg News With the pandem- ic igniting a collective reassessment of work, imagine posting open- ings for jobs that could require standing for 12-hour shifts, work- ing six-day weeks and repeatedly lift- ing 70-pound objects in conditions that range from steaming hot to bloody and ice cold. And on top of all that, your industry recent- ly made headlines for COVID-19 outbreaks that killed workers. This is precisely what meatpackers are facing. Of all the industries experiencing crunch- es for hourly labor, it’s hard to find one with a greater recruiting challenge. Companies have tried all the usual tricks to lure ap- plicants, including offering signing bo- nuses of as much as
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Angus Association, a Kansas FSA Board of Directors member and chairman, and a Reins of Hope Riding Academy chairman.
year and sells many fe- males. McCurry has served on many com- mittees and boards including serving as president of Kansas
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