By Karl Plume
CHICAGO (Reuters) -U.S. agribusiness Cargill Inc said Wednesday it is permanently laying off 80 employees in Minnesota and an undisclosed number globally in the latest wave of job cuts among agricultural companies hit by a broader farm sector slump.
The layoffs, part of a plan announced last December to cut its workforce by 5%, were aimed at “reducing redundancy in select professional areas,” Cargill said in an emailed statement.
The layoffs were not triggered by any business exits and were not tied to replacing human workers with automation or artificial intelligence, the Minnesota-based company said.
Cargill is the largest privately-held U.S. company, with a global workforce of about 155,000.
About 80 employees in Minnesota, including staff at Cargill’s Wayzata Office Center, will be laid off beginning on December 31 and will be offered severance pay and outplacement services, according to a Cargill letter sent to the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development on Monday.
Cargill’s workforce reductions are the latest in a wave of job cuts following announcements at tech giant Amazon, retailer Target and others, and the firing of numerous federal government employees.
(Reporting by Karl Plume in Chicago; editing by Diane Craft)
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