An Unexpected Company is Now Laying Off in Iowa

June 24, 2024

An unexpected company is now laying off in Iowa according to new Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification data.

FD Treats recently announced the closure of its Hawarden plant, resulting in a total of 36 job losses last week.

In compliance with the Worker Adjustment and Retraining (WARN) Act, FD Treats filed the required 60-day notice with the Iowa Workforce Development Department.

FD Treats is a brand of freeze-dried pet food for cats and dogs made in Korea.

The treats are grain free, made with high-quality plaice, and contain Omega-3 fatty acids that are good for skin and coat.

They also don’t contain artificial additives, preservatives, or synthetic colors

However, FD Treats isn’t the only company who has advised of upcoming layoffs in Ohio.

Bridgestone-Firestone, a key player in the tractor tire industry, plans to cut a total of 118 positions at its Des Moines facility on July 5, impacting approximately 15% of the plant’s workforce.

The manufacturing sector has been hit particularly hard, with John Deere implementing layoffs in Waterloo and Ankeny, while Cygnus Home Services announced job cuts across multiple locations, including Des Moines, Cedar Falls, DeWitt, and Humboldt.

The food processing industry hasn’t been spared either.

West Liberty Foods recently laid off around 260 employees as it relocated operations to Illinois.

In a devastating move for the small town of Perry, Tyson Foods decided to close its pork processing plant on June 28, eliminating a whopping 1,276 manufacturing jobs.

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Other Economy News Today

Applications for unemployment benefits now surge to new highs, a sign that the white-hot labor market is starting to cool off.

First-time applications for unemployment benefits rose last week to 231,000, the highest level since August, per CNN.

Thursday’s data also showed that the number of continuing claims, or applications from people who have filed for unemployment for at least one week, was 1.78 million.

That’s an increase of 17,000 from the prior week, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The latest numbers come less than a week after the monthly jobs report showed the US economy added just 175,000 positions in April, less than economists expected and a steep drop-off from prior months.

US employers have now added an average of 245,500 jobs per month, versus 2023’s 251,000-per-month average.

Still, hiring remains strong. Although the unemployment rate ticked up to 3.9% last month, it’s the 27th consecutive month that the jobless rate has held under 4%, matching a streak last seen in the late 1960s.

Weekly jobless claims data tends to be volatile but, while one week’s worth of data “does not a trend make,” said Chris Rupkey, chief economist at Fwdbonds.

“We can no longer be sure that calm seas lie ahead for the US economy if today’s weekly jobless claims are any indication.”

“Company layoffs are picking up, hinting at caution on the part of companies as they weigh the outlook for the second half of the year,” he wrote in a note Thursday.

The Federal Reserve has been battling inflation by raising its key lending rate in the hopes of slowing the economy.

While the labor market has so far resisted those efforts, remaining white hot for the past 18 months despite 11 rate hikes from the central bank, Fed Chair Jerome Powell said last week that demand has “cooled from its extremely high level of a couple of years ago.”

Ian Shepherdson at Pantheon Economics said in a note Thursday: “We’d need to see at least a month of elevated readings to convince us that the trend really has turned.”

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Also Read: A Giant Company Now Announces Unexpected Layoffs in Virginia

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