Food plants shed 20,400 jobs in a year while raising pay 3.25 percent

What happened to food manufacturing jobs?

After a decade of almost uninterrupted growth, food manufacturing payrolls peaked in mid 2025 and have fallen every month since April 2026. The August level is 1,764,600, against 1,785,000 a year earlier. Production and nonsupervisory employment fell 10,800 to 1,389,600. The industry's own unemployment rate was 5.7 percent in August, not seasonally adjusted, against 4.1 percent nationally. Output tells the same story: the Federal Reserve's industrial production index for food manufacturing was down 1.6 percent from a year earlier in July, and capacity utilization slipped to 77.3 percent from 79.4 percent. Dollar shipments were up 1.4 percent: revenue is holding on price, not volume.

Why is pay rising while jobs fall?

Because the supply of authorized hourly workers is shrinking faster than demand. Food manufacturing production pay of $24.78 is up 3.25 percent over the year, ahead of the 3.1 percent gain for all private workers and the 2.2 percent rise in food at home prices. It is still $5.59 below the $30.37 average for all manufacturing production workers, and that gap is why food plants lose people to durable goods plants: nondurable goods openings fell to 151,000 in July 2026 from 172,000 a year earlier while durable goods openings jumped to a 5.2 percent rate. Overtime in food plants ran 4.2 hours a week in July, more than a full hour above the manufacturing average, which is what thin staffing on production and sanitation shifts looks like in the data.

Turnover has cooled. The monthly quits rate in nondurable goods manufacturing was 1.5 percent in July 2026, half the 2.9 percent average of 2022. But the workforce that fills these plants is disproportionately foreign born: Hispanic or Latino workers were 30.1 percent of food manufacturing employment in 2025 and 37.4 percent of animal slaughtering and processing, against 18.7 percent of all manufacturing (BLS Current Population Survey). Work authorization changes hit this workforce directly. The Supreme Court allowed the termination of Temporary Protected Status for Haiti in 2026, and USCIS announced on September 11 that it had already reached the H 2B cap for the first half of fiscal 2027. Plants that hired TPS holders in 2022 to 2024 must reverify on expiration and backfill.

Where are the closures and where are the openings?

The cuts are concentrated in beef, snacks and cereal. Tyson Foods, expecting beef segment losses of $500 million to $650 million in fiscal 2026, closed plants in Nebraska, Illinois and Utah this year. Campbell's is closing three plants and cutting 13 percent of its salaried workforce after snack sales fell 12 percent in its latest quarter. The Ferrero owned WK Kellogg Co closed its Omaha cereal plant (451 jobs) on August 17. The openings are in dairy, protein beverages, poultry and confectionery.

What do food plant jobs pay?

BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics for May 2025 put the median hourly wage across all occupations in food manufacturing at $21.66. Sanitation, hand packing and meat cutting are the lowest paid and hardest to hold; maintenance mechanics sit at the top of the hourly ladder.

Safety is part of the pay conversation. Food manufacturing recorded 3.3 injury and illness cases per 100 full time workers in 2024, against 2.7 for all manufacturing. Dairy plants ran 4.2, beverage plants 3.7 and poultry processing 2.4 (BLS Survey of Occupational Injuries and Illnesses, 2024 data, released January 22, 2026).

Which roles are hardest to fill?

• Industrial maintenance technicians and mechanics. BLS projects 14 percent growth from 2025 to 2035, with about 51,900 openings a year on a base of 547,300 jobs. Every plant that automates palletizing needs more of them, not fewer.
• Third shift sanitation. The lowest median pay in the plant, overnight hours, chemical exposure, and the workforce most exposed to work authorization changes.
• Meat, poultry and fish processing workers. 359,300 jobs, projected growth of 4 percent, about 39,800 openings a year, mostly replacement. Beef closures release workers in the Plains while Southeast poultry plants are short.
• QA and food safety technicians. Demand rises with SQF Edition 10 audits, the FDA's 2027 dye reformulation deadlines and FSMA 204 traceability, compliance date July 20, 2028.
• Machine operators and batchmakers. Automation raises the skill bar without raising pay much, which sends people to durable goods plants.

Demand is shifting, too. Circana finds 8.5 percent of US adults following a GLP 1 diet, up from 4.8 percent a year earlier, and store brands reached a record 23.8 percent unit share in the first half of 2026 (PLMA and Circana). Volume is moving from branded snack and cereal plants toward protein, dairy and contract manufacturers, which lean harder on flexible labor. Even so, BLS still projects food and beverage manufacturing employment to grow 6.2 percent, or 130,000 jobs, from 2024 to 2034, the most of any manufacturing sector.

Production note: drafted from the primary sources listed above with AI assistance, then reviewed and edited by Kenneth Cuzelis before publication. Read how we source and grade every number. Corrections: info@c3workforce.com or (734) 552-5731.