PERRY, Iowa — Tyson Foods employees in Perry worked their last shift at the plant Friday.
Tyson has been a part of the fabric of the city for years. Out of Perry’s 8,000 residents, 800 of them worked at the plant.
Tyson employees aren't the only ones out of jobs: A local career academy told Local 5 that more than 100 other people in connected industries also lost their jobs.
As for the outgoing Tyson employees, some have jobs lined up, some are moving to work at a different Tyson location and others are figuring out their next steps. That’s according to City Manager Sven Peterson.
“Hoping we can keep all of those folks… as many as we can within Perry because they’re our friends, they’re our neighbors, they’re with their kids in day care or school, so they’re just a really important part of this community," Peterson said.
Depending on the direction the city takes post-closure, the ripple effect could impact local businesses, the city’s budget and even the school.
“There’s 300 students in the Perry school district that have a household tie to one of the Tyson employees, so that would be a really large impact if all 300 of those students left," Peterson said.
That's something PerryNext, a coalition of local leaders tackling the city’s response to the closure, is working to prevent.
Greater Dallas County Development Alliance Executive Director Rachel Wacker says part of that effort is bringing in new employers.
“We have had quite a few interested in the industrial park," she said. "There’s a shell building out there that’s 30,000 square feet."
Wacker says PerryNext is marketing the area's "captive workforce" as a selling point for potential businesses coming into the area.
"They are high-skilled already, can be reskilled very easily because we've got DMACC and Iowa Workforce Development supporting those efforts and, on top of that, we have shovel-ready land," she said.
By "shovel-ready land," Wacker is referring to the fact that Perry had some land state-certified, which means that workers have already gone through the due diligence process that companies have to go through before they break ground.
"That shovel-ready land is helping to save them six to 12 months on their development process," Wacker explained.
Getting former Tyson employees job training is another layer of PerryNext's efforts. DMACC Perry VanKirk Career Academy's director Eddie Diaz says they offer a variety of opportunities from welding to CDL to health care.
“It started off slow but, over the last week, we’ve seen an increase in foot traffic," Diaz said. "We expect it to increase more so next week."
DMACC has partnered with Iowa Workforce Development and other organizations to provide opportunities like job fairs and training. The school is also providing English language learning classes, as Tyson's workforce spoke a variety of different languages.
City officials have told Local 5 that whether the Tyson building is sold will be the biggest indicator of what the city’s future holds. Peterson says no company has been officially locked down, but there are several interested parties.