NORTH LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — The doors of Tyson Foods in North Little Rock are officially closed for good— this has left many people in the community without a job.
"When this happens, you don't want to have someone pick up their whole life and move, they want to be able to live in the community and stay in the community," Derrell Hartwick, CEO of the North Little Rock Chamber of Commerce said.
Hartwick explained that the closure of the Tyson plant has left 339 workers unemployed so the next step is figuring out how their department can help secure a job for those workers.
"I've been referring a lot of people just to the division of workforce services in that area but anytime there's anything like this, that's what our chambers here to do and we're pretty proactive," Hartwick said.
In a statement released by Tyson Foods, they said:
"Supporting our team members has been our top priority ahead of the plant closing. We actively encouraged team members to apply for open roles within Tyson Foods. Approximately 30 team members are relocating to other Tyson Foods facilities and will remain employed by the company. We also closely coordinated with state and local officials to connect team members to available resources and organized several job fairs, including one in partnership with the North Little Rock Chamber of Commerce, with 30 prospective employers participating."
Hartwick said that by working closely with city leaders as well as the CEO of Tyson, they came up with a solution to host a job fair on September 18, 2023, to help provide resources and opportunities for workers to stay within the North Little Rock community.
"We had over 100 employees come. We had close to 20 businesses show up, we partnered with the Department of Workforce Services and I've heard nothing but good things specific to businesses that are on my board. They had 14 potential hires from that." Hartwick described.
For many Tyson workers, the poultry business is the only work they know so Hartwick said they also strategically planned out to have businesses that fit the mold of the workers.
"That was really important, as well as finding businesses that wanted to be a part of it that fit the mold or the skill set of these individuals and so that's why we offered the hiring event whether it was a job fair for some, but it was maybe where they hired on the spot as well," Hartwick said.
The Tyson Plant closure will have a major impact on the city so Hartwick said it's important that they figure out a way to still recruit businesses and create jobs in the area.
"This is not probably going to be the last time that something like this happens so you know, right now we have Dollar General, Lowe's, Federal Metal, those are bigger businesses, and we have about six or 700 jobs available in North Little Rock right now so the opportunity is there," Hartwick added.