Immigration raids that rounded up about 1,300 Swift & Co. workers at six meatpacking plants last month could cost the company up to $30 million, officials said today.
Greeley-based Swift said its preliminary estimate of the one-time impact of the raids included $20 million in lost operating efficiency as new employees are retrained, plus up to $10 million to retain workers and offer hiring incentives to add back production employees.
Operations at the six plants were suspended six to seven hours on Dec. 12 while immigration officials interviewed employees, the company said.
Reduced production was expected at the plants in the near term, the company said in a news release. It did not say when production might be back to normal, and a company spokesman did not immediately return a phone message seeking comment.
Swift officials planned to discuss the company’s financial results for its latest fiscal quarter ended Nov. 26 in a conference call Friday morning.
With more than $9 billion in annual sales, Swift describes itself as the world’s second-largest processor of fresh beef and pork products.
Privately held Swift on Thursday reported a net loss of $11.99 million for its latest fiscal quarter, narrowed from a loss of $17.86 million in the same period a year earlier.
It reported net sales of $2.47 billion for the quarter, up 6.9 percent from $2.31 billion in the same period a year earlier.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents raided plants in Greeley; Grand Island, Neb.; Cactus, Texas; Hyrum, Utah; Marshalltown, Iowa; and Worthington, Minn. The plants represented all of Swift’s domestic beef processing capacity and 77 percent of its pork processing capacity.
