IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wly/agribz/v39y2023i3p691-702.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Beef and pork processing plant labor costs

Author

Listed:
  • Christopher N. Boyer
  • Dayton M. Lambert
  • Charles C. Martinez
  • Joshua G. Maples

Abstract

Federal and state legislators recently enacted policies to fund new and renovated small and local meat processors expansion with the aim of increasing the meat‐processing sector's resiliency. Wages must be competitive to attract employees for these new and renovated plants to be competitive. No previous studies have examined what has happened to employee labor costs at United States (US) meat‐processing plants since the early 2000s. This study estimates how meat‐processing firm size affects employee wages in the US. We use average employee wages for beef and pork processing plants from 2007 to 2019. We find larger plants pay higher wages than smaller ones, which is likely attributable to lower fixed costs resulting from economies of scale. Findings suggest that facilities with more than 500+ employees will most likely offer wage that are high enough to recruit workers in for this industry. Small plants will need to increase real wages that are higher than historical averages. Thus, if smaller facilities increase the sector's resiliency, then it will likely come at a cost in terms of higher wage bills. [EconLit Citations: Q12, Q18].

Suggested Citation

  • Christopher N. Boyer & Dayton M. Lambert & Charles C. Martinez & Joshua G. Maples, 2023. "Beef and pork processing plant labor costs," Agribusiness, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 39(3), pages 691-702, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:agribz:v:39:y:2023:i:3:p:691-702
    DOI: 10.1002/agr.21804
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1002/agr.21804
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1002/agr.21804?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Meilin Ma & Jayson L. Lusk, 2022. "Concentration and Resilience in the US Meat Supply Chains," NBER Chapters, in: Risks in Agricultural Supply Chains, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Ward, Clement E. & Hornung, Jonathan T., 2005. "Price Effects from an Anticipated Meatpacking Plant Opening and Unexpected Plant Closing," Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Western Agricultural Economics Association, vol. 30(3), pages 1-11, December.
    3. Koop,Gary & Poirier,Dale J. & Tobias,Justin L., 2007. "Bayesian Econometric Methods," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521671736, June.
    4. James M. MacDonald & Michael E. Ollinger, 2005. "Technology, Labor Wars, and Producer Dynamics: Explaining Consolidation in Beefpacking," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 87(4), pages 1020-1033.
    5. Clement E. Ward, 1993. "Comparative analysis of cattle slaughtering and fabricating costs," Agribusiness, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 9(5), pages 441-451.
    6. A. Ford Ramsey & Barry Goodwin & Mildred Haley, 2021. "Labor Dynamics and Supply Chain Disruption in Food Manufacturing," NBER Chapters, in: Risks in Agricultural Supply Chains, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. Michael H. Schneider & Stavros A. Zenios, 1990. "A Comparative Study of Algorithms for Matrix Balancing," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 38(3), pages 439-455, June.
    8. Geweke, J, 1993. "Bayesian Treatment of the Independent Student- t Linear Model," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 8(S), pages 19-40, Suppl. De.
    9. Chan,Joshua & Koop,Gary & Poirier,Dale J. & Tobias,Justin L., 2019. "Bayesian Econometric Methods," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9781108423380, January.
    10. Krumel, Thomas P. Jr., 2017. "Anti-Immigration Reform and Reductions in Welfare: Evidence from the Meatpacking Industry," Choices: The Magazine of Food, Farm, and Resource Issues, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 32(1), April.
    11. Ahmad Zia Wahdat & Jayson L. Lusk, 2023. "The Achilles heel of the U.S. food industries: Exposure to labor and upstream industries in the supply chain," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 105(2), pages 624-643, March.
    12. James M. MacDonald & Michael E. Ollinger, 2000. "Scale Economies and Consolidation in Hog Slaughter," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 82(2), pages 334-346.
    13. Clement E. Ward, 1990. "Meatpacking plant capacity and utilization: Implications for competition and pricing," Agribusiness, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 6(1), pages 65-73.
    14. Stephen R. Koontz & John D. Lawrence, 2010. "Impacts of alternative marketing agreement cattle procurement on packer costs, gross margins, and profits: evidence from plant-level profit and loss data," Agribusiness, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 26(1), pages 1-24.
    15. Yeojin Chung & Sophia Rabe-Hesketh & Vincent Dorie & Andrew Gelman & Jingchen Liu, 2013. "A Nondegenerate Penalized Likelihood Estimator for Variance Parameters in Multilevel Models," Psychometrika, Springer;The Psychometric Society, vol. 78(4), pages 685-709, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Joshua C. C. Chan & Liana Jacobi & Dan Zhu, 2022. "An automated prior robustness analysis in Bayesian model comparison," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 37(3), pages 583-602, April.
    2. C. Glocker & G. Sestieri & P. Towbin, 2017. "Time-varying fiscal spending multipliers in the UK," Working papers 643, Banque de France.
    3. Ward, Clement E., 2002. "A Review of Causes for and Consequences of Economic Concentration in the U.S. Meatpacking Industry," CAFRI: Current Agriculture, Food and Resource Issues, Canadian Agricultural Economics Society, issue 3, pages 1-28, January.
    4. Doğan, Osman & Taşpınar, Süleyman, 2014. "Spatial autoregressive models with unknown heteroskedasticity: A comparison of Bayesian and robust GMM approach," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 1-21.
    5. Ahtiainen, Heini & Vanhatalo, Jarno, 2012. "The value of reducing eutrophication in European marine areas — A Bayesian meta-analysis," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 83(C), pages 1-10.
    6. Adnan Haider Bukhari & Safdar Ullah Khan, 2008. "A Small Open Economy DSGE Model for Pakistan," The Pakistan Development Review, Pakistan Institute of Development Economics, vol. 47(4), pages 963-1008.
    7. Francesco Furlanetto & Francesco Ravazzolo & Samad Sarferaz, 2019. "Identification of Financial Factors in Economic Fluctuations," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 129(617), pages 311-337.
    8. Liu, De-Chih & Chang, Yu-Chien, 2022. "Systematic variations in exchange rate returns," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 82(C), pages 569-583.
    9. Hasan, Iftekhar & Horvath, Roman & Mares, Jan, 2020. "Finance and wealth inequality," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 108(C).
    10. Obryan Poyser, 2017. "Exploring the determinants of Bitcoin's price: an application of Bayesian Structural Time Series," Papers 1706.01437, arXiv.org.
    11. Rob Luginbuhl, 2020. "Estimation of the Financial Cycle with a Rank-Reduced Multivariate State-Space Model," CPB Discussion Paper 409, CPB Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis.
    12. Bin Jiang & Anastasios Panagiotelis & George Athanasopoulos & Rob Hyndman & Farshid Vahid, 2016. "Bayesian Rank Selection in Multivariate Regression," Monash Econometrics and Business Statistics Working Papers 6/16, Monash University, Department of Econometrics and Business Statistics.
    13. Joshua C. C. Chan, 2018. "Specification tests for time-varying parameter models with stochastic volatility," Econometric Reviews, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 37(8), pages 807-823, September.
    14. Baştürk, Nalan & Grassi, Stefano & Hoogerheide, Lennart & Opschoor, Anne & van Dijk, Herman K., 2017. "The R Package MitISEM: Efficient and Robust Simulation Procedures for Bayesian Inference," Journal of Statistical Software, Foundation for Open Access Statistics, vol. 79(i01).
    15. Meilin Ma & Jayson L. Lusk, 2022. "Concentration and Resilience in the US Meat Supply Chains," NBER Chapters, in: Risks in Agricultural Supply Chains, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    16. Babatunde O. Abidoye & Joseph A. Herriges & Justin L. Tobias, 2012. "Controlling for Observed and Unobserved Site Characteristics in RUM Models of Recreation Demand," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 94(5), pages 1070-1093.
    17. Knut Are Aastveit & Gisle James Natvik & Sergio Sola, 2013. "Economic uncertainty and the effectiveness of monetary policy," Working Paper 2013/17, Norges Bank.
    18. Wang, Zheqi & Crook, Jonathan & Andreeva, Galina, 2020. "Reducing estimation risk using a Bayesian posterior distribution approach: Application to stress testing mortgage loan default," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 287(2), pages 725-738.
    19. Dahem, Ahlem, 2015. "Short term Bayesian inflation forecasting for Tunisia," MPRA Paper 66702, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    20. Ollinger, Michael, 2009. "The Cost of Food Safety Technologies in the Meat and Poultry Industries," 2009 Annual Meeting, July 26-28, 2009, Milwaukee, Wisconsin 48783, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:wly:agribz:v:39:y:2023:i:3:p:691-702. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/10.1002/(ISSN)1520-6297 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.