Tyson Foods closing Columbia processing plant. More than 100 jobs lost
More than 100 people will be out of their jobs at a Columbia food processing facility.
Tyson Prepared Foods is closing its processing plant near Bluff Road, which will put 146 people out of work, according to the South Carolina Department of Employment and Workforce.
The facility will close in August, the department’s layoff report shows.
The plant processed pork for taco filling and pizza toppings, Tyson spokesperson Worth Sparkman said.
The Arkansas based company “decided to move that production to another location,” Sparkman said.
“After much consideration and as part of ongoing efforts to increase efficiency in our business, we plan to discontinue operations at our Columbia, S.C., plant in mid-August,” the company spokesperson said in a statement. “We’ve made this very difficult decision in order to continue focusing on and investing in strategic growth priorities.”
Tyson will cooperate with state officials to let employees know about unemployment benefits and other company jobs, the statement said.
The coronavirus outbreak “did not influence this decision” to close the plant, the company said.
Though COVID-19 may not have played a part in Tyson’s decision, meatpacking workers have been plagued by the coronavirus. More than 10,000 workers fell ill across 170 plants in the United States with at least 45 deaths as of late May, according to national media outlets and research groups. Over a thousand cases of the coronavirus are connected to a pork processing plant in South Dakota, giving the plant one of the highest concentrations for a COVID-19 outbreak in the U.S.
House of Raeford farms, another, larger poultry processing plant in West Columbia, has faced its own difficulties. A recent labor dispute started an investigation by the workers’ union for possibly violating the workers’ contract.
South Carolina is dealing with high unemployment as the coronavirus hits the state’s economy, South Carolina officials have said. Overall in the past 12 weeks, the total number of unemployment initial claims has risen to 582,265, according to state employment department.
This story was originally published June 23, 2020 at 1:42 PM.