The coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has challenged meat packers, and the workers who keep the country's meat and poultry processing lines moving, perhaps more than any other manufacturing industry. As the virus has moved slowly out of some of the early hotspots in densely populated urban areas, it has spread into rural areas that support most of the country's food manufacturing. Meat processing plants have seen temporary closures and fast-moving outbreaks of the virus due to the nature of how the work is done. Some packers have had to ramp up hiring and evaluate how to incentivize production staffs to continue to work by providing more testing, safety protocols, and enhancing benefit structures.
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