Pilgrim’s Announces 230 Layoffs
Brent Finnegan -- January 5th, 2010
Reuters is reporting that Pilgrim’s Pride, which was recently bought by JBS, is cutting office jobs in several locations. Timberville is among them. These are administrative, “white collar” jobs, not production positions. The total is 230 nationwide, though it’s unclear from this release how many of those positions have been eliminated locally.
About 160 of the primarily salaried positions being eliminated are based at Pilgrim’s Pride’s headquarters in Pittsburg, Texas, or in nearby Mt. Pleasant, Texas, the company said in a statement.
The remaining positions being eliminated are spread over nearly a dozen other sites, including Atlanta, Dallas and Broadway, Virginia.
Tags: poultry, Timberville
Since coming to the Valley, Mr. Pilgrim has seen fit to close the processing plant in Alma, to close the plant in Harrisonburg, to close the plant in Hinton, and continues to reduce the Valley involvement in poultry farming and production…
Fortunately for the Valley, the Hinton plant at least was saved by the combined action of farmers, state and federal government thus averting the loss of some $250 million to the local economy.
Ironically, Mr. Pilgrim himself has also been ousted, although he will stay on as a member of the board.
This from Reuters:
That can’t be good for business, and I believe that Russia is the No.1 trading partner to US poultry producers. The Russians and the Chinese have been in a lather for years about antibiotics and other bird treatments.
Didn’t they just rehire a bunch of workers here in the Valley?