Tyson Foods did not say it would hire 52,000 migrants

Some people are boycotting Tyson Foods because of misinformation about the company’s hiring practices. 

Social media users shared a Fox Business clip with the headline, “Tyson Foods lays off 1,200+ American workers in Iowa as it plans to hire 52,000 migrants.” 

In the clip, taken from “The Bottom Line,” co-host Sean Duffy, a former Republican representative from Wisconsin, said, “Tyson laying off 1,200 workers after closing its pork factory in Perry, Iowa, only later to announce 52,000 jobs for migrants.” Co-host Dagan McDowell then partially quoted a Tyson Foods human resources executive as saying the migrants have been “very loyal. They’ve been uprooted and what they want is stability — what they want is a sense of belonging.”

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The full Fox Business segment aired March 16. The Tyson Foods human resources manager’s partial quote came from a March 11 Bloomberg News article titled, “Tyson is hiring New York immigrants for jobs no one else wants.” Fox Business did not immediately respond to our request for comment.

Bloomberg News reported that Tyson “plans to hire about 52,000 people” this year at $16.50 an hour, without specifying who would fill those roles.

A Tyson Foods spokesperson said the company did not make an announcement to hire 52,000 migrants and does not have 52,000 jobs available, calling  the figure an “inaccurate representation of job openings at Tyson Foods.” “Nor do we earmark any available jobs for any one group of people,” the spokesperson said in an email. Anyone who is qualified and legally authorized to work in the U.S. can apply for their jobs, the company said. 

The Bloomberg News article also said that Tyson is partnering with Tent, an organization that helps businesses hire refugees. Refugees are people who had to leave their country because of persecution based on their race, religion, nationality, political opinion or membership in a specific social group, according to U.S. law. Refugees are in the country legally. They apply for the refugee program before arriving in the United States and must pass biometric and biographical checks as well as interviews with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.

Tent says it is partnering with more than 400 global companies to help integrate refugees. Tyson Foods has partnered with Tent since 2022, when it made a three-year commitment to hire 2,500 refugees in the U.S., according to information on Tent’s website. 

But this year was the first time Tyson Foods participated in a Tent hiring event, a Tyson Foods spokesperson said. 

“Any insinuation that we would cut American jobs to hire immigrant workers is completely false,” Tyson Foods said in an undated statement published on its website. “Today, Tyson Foods employs 120,000 team members in the United States, all of whom are required to be legally authorized to work in this country.” 

Scripps News, a broadcast news network, on March 13 retracted a story headlined “Tyson Foods wants to hire 52,000 asylum seekers for factory jobs” because it contained “serious factual inaccuracies,” and Scripps was “unable to verify that number.” 

We rate the claim that Tyson Foods announced it would hire 52,000 migrants False.