Poultry jobs set for Fort Smith

Oklahoma plant to share 182 hires

— OK Industries Inc. of Fort Smith said Friday that it will hire 182 workers over the next two months, a combination of recalled and new positions, to work in its poultry-processing plants in the area.

New owner Industrias Bachoco of Mexico will also divvy up a $7 million capital investment between Fort Smith and Heavener, Okla.

The company operates slaughter and deboning plants in Fort Smith and Heavener, which is about 45 miles southwest of Fort Smith.

“We’re excited and glad to have some good news to share with Fort Smith and the Heavener communities,” said Donna Miller, an OK Industries spokesman.

The Fort Smith metropolitan area, which has a population of about 288,000, has seen its manufacturing employment base shrink. Whirlpool Corp. is readying to vacate its plant, leaving about 800 without jobs. At its peak in 2005, it employed more than 4,600. A handful of Whirlpool suppliers already have closed their Fort Smith operations.

OK Industries employs more than 2,800 at administrative offices, processing plants, hatcheries and feed mills in Arkansas and Oklahoma.

Most of the added jobs will be in deboning plant positions, which use both mechanized and hand-cutting methods. Hiring will fill so-called further-processing positions just in Fort Smith. The new jobs will pay between $8.60 and $12.50 an hour, Miller said.

Renovations at both locations will be completed by the beginning of June, said Miller.

Changes at Heavener will not include the installation of a piece of equipment used to “irreversibly” stun birds before the animals enter the factory.

In Fort Smith, OK Industries reformatted plant operations to accommodate the setup of a “low atmospheric pressure system,” which kills the birds by lowering air pressure in a sealed chamber. The device has been used since February 2011 and is the only one in use in the country.

OK Industries said it could not break down its hiring between recalled and new positions but said layoffs happened during the past two years, coinciding with an oversupply of poultry meat in the market.

Demand for workers is now partly being driven by an improving poultry market and “since being acquired by Bachoco, we’re going into some avenues that we had not pursued before,” Miller said.

The Fort Smith Metropolitan Statistical Area includes Sebastian, Crawford and Franklin counties in Arkansas, and Le Flore and Sequoyah counties in Oklahoma. Heavener and Poteau are in Le Flore County.

“You can’t be too choosy when adding jobs at this time of the economic recovery,” said Kermit Kuehn, director of the Center for Business Research and Economic Development at the University of Arkansas at Fort Smith. “We’re thrilled they’re adding jobs, since there will be certain ‘flow-through’ effects for local retailers.”

The area has had a string of bad news recently, referring in part to Mitsubishi Power System of America’s announcement to indefinitely suspend the creation of about 300 assembly jobs, so these “bits and pieces” are good news, Kuehn said.

On Monday, the wind turbine manufacturer said it would stop taking orders in the United States for machinery expected to be assembled at the Chaffee Crossing plant.

The unemployment rate for the Fort Smith Metropolitan Statistical Area in January was 8.9 percent. A year earlier, unemployment was 9.2 percent, the most recent government data show.

Historically, the area’s economy has been driven by manufacturers such as household appliance maker Whirlpool Corp. and air-conditioning makers Trane Inc. and Rheem Manufacturing Inc.

However, the housing market downturn and global realignments have affected employment levels at factories in Fort Smith and are expected to continue to do so.

A small number of food manufacturers also make a home in the state’s second largest city.

Those businesses include baby-food manufacturer Gerber, Hiram Walker, pet-food maker Mars PetCare and Planters Inc.

And while food manufacturing is seen as more stable than manufacturing linked to broader economic trends, food manufacturer Ralcorp Holdings Inc. of St. Louis last week confirmed that it will close a cracker manufacturing plant in Poteau, Okla., at the end of May, leaving about 250 unemployed.

Paul Harvel, president of the Fort Smith Regional Chamber of Commerce, said the nice thing about the food industry is that food is generally manufactured in this country and not much is imported.

And “the food-manufacturing industry in Fort Smith has been growing,” he said.

In July 2010, Gerber announced a $90 million plant expansion that was supposed to add 50 jobs to an existing 650 positions.

Arkansas, Pages 9 on 04/07/2012

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