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Effect of Food Industry Mergers and Acquisitions on Employment and ...

Source: www.ers.usda.gov
Topic: Food Industry

Sort Desciption: For many years, mergers and acquisitions in the food industry have been viewed with skepticism. The primary concern was that mergers, by reducing the number ...

Content Inside: Report Summary ERS For many years, mergers and acquisitions in the food industry have been viewed with skepticism. The primary concern was that mergers, by reducing the number of firms and increasing industry concentration, were promoting anticompetitive pricing behavior. Senate hearings on the effect of mergers and acquisitions in meatpacking and slaughter are a good example of this concern. More recent attention by the media and policy officials has focused on the impact of food industry mergers on changes in the structure of the economy, particularly on how changes in employ- ment and wages affect the sustainability of rural communities. What Is the Issue? The effect of a merger on local employment and wages is not readily apparent. Mergers can cause lost jobs and reduced wages when new ownership attempts to lower production costs by shedding workers. Mergers and acquisition can, however, preserve and even increase employ- ment when a firm is saved from bankruptcy and plant closure or when new ownership expands output and hires more workers by capturing productivity gains through increased economies. During the 1980s and 1990s, 100,000 workers in seven food-related industries-meatpacking, meat processing, cheese, fluid milk, flour milling, feed, and oilseed processing (soybean, corn, and cottonseed processing) lost their jobs. At the same time, the pace of mergers and acquisitions accelerated in these industries, leading some observers of the food industry to conclude that mergers and acquisitions encouraged worker dislocations. What Did the Project Find? Empirical analysis of mergers and acquisitions in eight food industries during two distinct merger waves, 1977-82 and 1982-87, does not support the commonly held view that mergers and acqui- sitions necessarily caused worker dislocations and lost wages. Workers experienced a modest increase in the number of job opportunities but little change in wages relative to their peers. Findings from this repo ...

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