By Tom Polansek
CHICAGO (Reuters) -Global trading house Cargill plans to permanently terminate about 475 employees in Minnesota, home to its corporate headquarters, starting on Feb. 5, according to a company letter released by the state on Tuesday.
Cargill has said it plans to cut around 5% of its staff after revenue slumped in its most recent fiscal year as crop prices hit multi-year lows.
The company is informing Minnesota employees about layoffs this week, and they are eligible for severance pay and outplacement services, Cargill said in a letter to the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development.
The employees work at an office center in Wayzata or are “tagged” to the facility but live elsewhere, according to the letter, which added that they are not represented by a union.
“Cargill is undergoing a business restructuring that is resulting in a reduction in force of certain roles at the Wayzata Office Center,” the letter said.
Agricultural merchants, including privately held Cargill, are under pressure as prices of the commodity crops they trade, such as wheat, corn and soybeans, have dropped to near four-year lows and crop processing margins have shrunk.
Cargill has more than 160,000 employees, which implies that a 5% cut in staff would hit about 8,000 jobs.
The company reported revenue of $160 billion for its 2024 fiscal year that ended in May, down from a record $177 billion in the previous year.
Cargill does not release quarterly earnings statements, but in a memo seen by Reuters in August, it said less than one-third of its businesses met their earnings goals in the last fiscal year.
(Reporting by Tom Polansek; Editing by Lisa Shumaker, Chizu Nomiyama and Bill Berkrot)
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