2015 is the first year outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas has attributed notable job losses to food-production shutdowns linked to listeria and bird flu. In total, 1,937 layoffs have been linked to contamination problems, exceeding the amount lost to problems with government regulation and nearly matching those lost to increased competition, according to Bloomberg Business.
The lion's share of layoffs is due to plant shutdowns at Blue Bell Creameries following listeria outbreaks that may have resulted in three deaths. Other major contributing factors were salmonella and avian flu outbreaks on poultry farms, according to Bloomberg Business.
The top three reasons for layoffs were restructuring (nearly 175,000 layoffs), oil prices (about 100,000 layoffs) and cost-cutting (about 90,000 layoffs), according to the CG&C report.