HyLife lays off 87 employees in Manitoba

Citing challenges in the pork processing industry, global pork processing company HyLife is laying off 87 people, the company announced at the start of June

Twenty-nine of those positions will be eliminated from the company’s pork processing plant, HyLife Foods, in Neepawa, 76 kilometres northeast of Brandon. The remaining positions are mainly administrative roles from the company’s head office in Steinbach, 302 kilometres southeast of Brandon.

“The majority [of the cuts] are administrative with minimal impact on our production and range from director level to term employees supporting Canadian operations,” HyLife said in a statement.

For the past few years, the company has been dealing with inflation, rising production costs, including feed and fuel, the uncertainty in hog and pork markets, and foreign exchange rates, HyLife president and CEO Grant Lazaruk said in a press release.

 

 

 “We’re seeing some market pressure coming from across the board that everybody in the industry is facing right now, but I don’t see this difficult period as something permanent”

 

“Over the last several months, these difficulties have become increasingly pressing and have created a situation where we need to be more efficient. We are carefully restructuring to endure the current global conditions,” he said.

The entire pork industry in Manitoba is facing a difficult time, Manitoba Pork general manager Cam Dahl told the Sun.

“That includes the hog farmers as well as the processors,” he said.

Variabilities such as feed prices and the COVID-19 pandemic have had a “significant” impact on the industry, Dahl said. Inflation has also led to a downturn in demand for pork products.

“We’re seeing some market pressure coming from across the board that everybody in the industry is facing right now,” Dahl said.

Despite these challenges, the longer-term outlook for the industry remains positive, he continued, citing international markets and access to a strong feed supply from the United States.

“I don’t see this difficult period as something permanent. There’s a lot of reasons to be optimistic about the industry’s growth,” Dahl said.

The layoffs at HyLife, he added, are not something that is going to impact hog production processing levels in Manitoba.

HyLife sold a bankrupt pork plant in Windom, Minn. earlier this month, affecting around 1,000 jobs. Premium Iowa Pork, a U.S.-based pork company, paid US$13 million for the acquisition, the Minneapolis Star Tribune reported.

Headquartered in La Broquerie, Man., 307 kilometres southeast of Brandon, HyLife has 2,500 employees and produces 3.4 million hogs annually.

The Sun contacted HyLife but did not receive a reply by press time.