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In 10 days, nearly a third of the population of a small city in Nebraska will be out of work. Tyson Foods is closing a massive beef processing plant in Lexington, leaving 3,000 people without jobs in what the company says is a necessary reaction to America's cattle population. Nebraska Public Media's Molly Ashford reports.
MOLLY ASHFORD, BYLINE: It's a little after 2 p.m. at the Tyson Foods beef processing plant in Lexington. Trucks speed past the building as workers carrying plastic backpacks cross the highway to start their shift. For 30 years, this has been a typical daily scene in the rural city of about 10,000 people. That will soon come to a halt. Last fall, Tyson announced the plant would close on January 20. Workers coming in and out of the plant are reluctant to talk, but some former employees are more forthcoming.
JAVIER RAMIREZ: (Speaking Spanish).
ASHFORD: That's Javier Ramirez (ph), who says many residents have connections to Lexington that will make it difficult to relocate. He works at his family's Mexican restaurant along the main stretch. He retired from Tyson last spring after 34 years at the company, and he worries about what a future without Tyson means for the city.
RAMIREZ: (Speaking Spanish).
ASHFORD: He says, "because we have things here," like his restaurant, it would be hard to move to another place. He will have to wait to see what happens. Tyson says it's shuttering the plant in order to, quote, "right-size" its beef business. While the news shocked the city, it didn't come as a big surprise for people who watch the cattle industry closely.
DAVID ANDERSON: Where we are in the cattle cycle, probably somebody was going to close.
ASHFORD: David Anderson, a livestock economist at Texas A&M University, says the cattle industry is cyclical. When the cattle herd is small, meat packers lose money while ranchers make a profit. When there's an excess inventory of cattle, meat packers profit as ranchers lose money. He says each cycle typically lasts about a decade. The cattle herd in the U.S. is the smallest it's been in decades, according to data from the Department of Agriculture, and packers like Tyson are feeling the strain.
ANDERSON: They've been losing a lot of money on the cattle side, as are all beef packers. But I suspect that that Lexington plant probably was less efficient or higher cost plant for them.
ASHFORD: Those reasons are cold comfort for Lexington's residents. Tyson is the backbone of the small city's economy. The plant's presence also contributed to a population boom. Lexington's population has nearly doubled since the plant opened in 1990, largely because of immigration. About 40% of the city's residents were born outside of the U.S. Jennifer Norton, Lexington's library director, worries the closure will lead to a loss of identity.
JENNIFER NORTON: There's going to be a very large exodus of our immigrant population just because there aren't - won't be jobs available right here in town.
ASHFORD: Longtime Lexington resident Teresa Razo (ph) also worries about the ripple effects of Tyson's exit. Razo's father moved the family to Lexington in the early 1990s to take a job at the plant. Since then, her whole family has made Lexington home. Razo started her own business, and her children play in the school's renowned band.
TERESA RAZO: Maybe some people are lucky enough and they can make a quick change, but most people have dedicated their lives to that plant, and they're not just going to be able to just pick it up and leave and take off.
ASHFORD: One of many questions that remains is what will become of the massive Tyson plant. Residents are hopeful that it could be repurposed for another industry or company. A Tyson spokesperson says the company is, quote, "assessing how we can repurpose the facility within our own production network." The last Tyson closure in the state was in another small town, Norfolk, Nebraska. That was in 2006. Twenty years later, the building remains empty.
For NPR News, I'm Molly Ashford in Lexington, Nebraska. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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