Sustainable Beef LLC will hire about 100 more people and raise its daily cattle processing goal by 300 head in response to next month's closure of Lexington's 35-year-old meatpacking plant. The new North Platte plant will aim for a 1,000-employee payroll processing 1,800 head per day, CEO David Briggs said Tuesday, confirming figures in a Wall Street Journal story on Tyson Foods' pending Jan. 20 shutdown in Lexington, Omaha, World Herald reported.
Tyson workers were lining up outside Sustainable Beef inquiring about jobs the day after the "Big Four" meatpacker's Nov. 21 announcement, Briggs said last month. Sustainable Beef, announced in 2021, held a ribbon-cutting ceremony March 24 and began processing cattle May 28.
Briggs said Tuesday that about 400 one-time Tyson workers already have joined the North Platte operation, counting hires both before and after the announcement.
A University of Nebraska-Lincoln study released Monday estimates that just more than 7,000 Nebraskans will lose their jobs due to Tyson's pending closure. That includes the 3,212 jobs Tyson will eliminate and "additional jobs that support those workers in other sectors," wrote Elliott Dennis and Eric Thompson of UNL's Center for Agricultural Profitability.
Job losses "are expected to be concentrated in Dawson County and neighboring communities," they added. The shutdown will cost the state $530.4 million a year in labor income, $33.4 million in state income and sales taxes and $2.8 million in local sales taxes.
